


Children of the Night - Part III: Out of the Land of Shadows

by Nos4a2no9



Series: Children of the Night [4]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-29
Updated: 2006-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 16:12:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nos4a2no9/pseuds/Nos4a2no9





	1. The Warming Spring

Slam was behind the wheel of the Plymouth, smoking and watching the road. The car was parked nose-out on a deserted backcountry lane set deep in the heart of Bristol Commons. It was early morning. The world was still gray and foggy. Frost dusted the grass lining the unpaved road. Spring was still a few weeks off, but the ground had thawed enough to turn the countryside a dull shade of brown. At this hour, the rutted ground was packed hard and deep. Frozen puddles of condensation left during the night had formed in the cracks running through the earth and Slam stared at the pools of ice, smoke from his slowly-burning Duke curling around his head. He stared through the smoke, waiting. He was good at that.

Finally he heard the soft pounding of feet in the distance, regular as a heartbeat. Selina, putting herself through the paces. He knew her routine: a 15 mile run, an hour of yoga and then a punishing combination of fight training and gymnastics. Selina had followed that regimen every day for a month since the casts had come off, and he considered once again how badly Huntress must have hurt her. It was more than simple embarrassment about being taken down by one of the junior-grade psychos. She was determined to never be hurt like that again. He’d seen Holly go through the same thing after Sylvia had…

Slam smiled, thinking of his women, both of them survivors and fighters. He loved them, more than they would ever know.

Holly stirred next to him, coming awake slowly. She’d come along for the ride and the promise of breakfast after the meet with Selina. The chance to see her best friend for the first time in six weeks hadn’t hurt either.

“Is she here yet?” Holly mumbled, her voice still thick with sleep. Slam shook his head, finishing the cigarette before the squirt had a chance to complain about the dangers of secondhand smoke.

“Give her a sec,” he advised, rolling the window down far enough to flick the butt out onto the frozen ground outside. He watched as the orange spark went out against the dull, dead earth, fading into gray.

Selina’s footsteps drew closer and she materialized out of the early-morning fog. The demur black sweat suit did little to conceal her curves but she looked thinner somehow, taller. Perspiration glistened on her cheeks, plastering strands of hair against her forehead. Slam thought she was beautiful.

She came to a halt slowly, walking for a bit, cooling down. Slam got out of the car and leaned against the driver’s side door. Holly scrambled out of the passenger seat and climbed over the hood to sit next to him, her slight weight not even registering on the car’s big frame.

“Hi!” Selina gasped, waving her hand in their general direction. She doubled over, her hands on her knees, dragging air into her lungs. Slam watched her while he lit another Duke.

“I told you to quit smoking,” he teased her about her winded state. Selina’s head came up and she approached him, snatching the cigarette out of his hand and taking a deep pull. She blew a delicately-formed smoke ring and handed the butt back to him.

“Still cheeky,” Slam smiled.

Selina grinned, throwing her arms around Holly, keeping her eyes on Slam’s face. “Glad you made it,” she said, her face still flushed from the run.

“I brought the rest of your clothes,” Holly piped up, squirming out of Selina’s embrace. She reminded Selina of Bruce, a little. He didn’t like to be touched too much either.

Holly continued, dutifully reporting, “Karon helped me pack them up. She sends her love, hopes you’re enjoying Mexico.”

Selina nodded, then mock-grimaced. “You didn’t let her pick out my vacation wardrobe, did you?”

Holly grinned and poked Selina’s side. As firm and sleek as Catwoman had been, Selina was now a rock. His training, Holly realized, watching her friend’s face. Things were different now. Neither Ted nor the sensei at that backalley dojo could teach Selina anything anymore. She’d crossed over, come under the tutelage of the Bat. Holly knew Slam worried about that, sometimes. She often saw him staring out the window in his dingy little office, frowning up at Wayne Towers.

Selina crossed around the back of the car. Slam reached into the open driver’s window and popped the trunk. They had a nice setup going in the Plymouth’s back end; there were holes punched into the lid of the trunk for breathing, an IV containing glucose, another bottle for urine. Useful for an emergency trip across state lines, or even a remote border run. A person could survive for days in the trunk of Slam’s old Plymouth, curled around the fuel cell on a couple of mouth-eaten blankets.

The trunk wasn’t habitable now, however. Cardboard boxes containing Selina’s few personal effects not destroyed in the fight with Huntress crowded the small space. Two cats, a short-haired domestic named Marcelo and an orange tabby named Smitty were napping comfortably on a box of Selina’s sweaters.

“Mew,” one of them greeted. Selina rubbed the tabby’s ears, a soft look in her eyes as she massaged the cat’s head.

“Thanks,” she told Slam and Holly. “I missed them.”

“Let me guess,” Slam began, lowering the trunk’s lid gently. “No stealing, no smoking, and no cats.”

“House rules,” Selina agreed. “But he’s willing to negotiate. He really isn’t as…hard as he pretends, Slam.”

Slam took another drag, casting a dubious expression towards Holly. The squirt shrugged, not wanting to get involved.

“He treating you okay?” Slam asked, his voice gruff. He pretended it was the cigarette smoke.

Selina leaned against the bumper, folding her arms across her chest. “What if I said no?”

“You could come home,” Holly said softly. Both Selina and Slam looked at her, surprised. “Well, it’s not like you’re living with him. Once you’re finished training-”

“There’s something coming,” Selina interrupted. “Something soon. April 1st. He hasn’t explained what it is, but I’m there until it’s over.”

“Any theories?” Slam asked, blowing a fine plume of smoke out into the overcast sky. Selina shook her head.

“There are some things we don’t talk about,” she said, wrinkling her brow. Something next to her sneaker began to fascinate her; Selina stabbed at it idly with her toe. “Surprise surprise.”

Holly frowned, chewing at her bottom lip. She leaned against the trunk next to Selina, crossing her arms in an unconscious imitation of the older woman. “Come home,” she said again. “We could go back to the way things were, before…”

“I nearly got you killed. You, Maggie, Slam..” Selina trailed off, feeling their concern and love for her. “The stuff with the Black Mask, Sylvia…At least he knows the risks.”

“Isn’t that something we should decide?” Slam said quietly. “I mean, shouldn’t you ask us if we want to be in your life? We learned our lesson, okay? No more drugs. No more messing with the mafia.”

“Unless we can get away with it,” Selina added with a wry smile. She shook her head. “I was kidding myself with our operation. I’ve seen his resources, what he’s got to throw up against the animals controlling the East End. He hasn’t made a dent.”

“Well, we’re not him,” Slam told her. “And sure, he’s got some good techniques. Scare tactics, mostly. We don’t trade on fear. We ask the people to come to us. Let them help us fix their problems.”

“We help the helpless,” Holly added. Slam resisted the urge to pat her on the head.

“This isn’t you, Selina,” he told his friend quietly. “You belong in the East End, doing the good work with us.”

Selina raised her eyes to his, the green orbs infinitely sad and wise. “I don’t belong anywhere, Slam. I’m just…just passing through.”

“That’s what it is, with him?”

She shrugged, taking Holly’s hand, her fingers warm and rough against the girl’s palm. “If I knew what it was, I could tell you why I’m so determined to stay.”

Her words hung in the cold spring air for a moment. Slam noticed that the first fingers of dawn were beginning to paint the sky a cool, pale pink in the east. “You love him?”

Holly looked at Slam sharply, frowning. If she’d know this was going to be a replay of their awkward Christmas dinner conversation…

Selina looked to the east, to the city and to the rising sun. “You asked me that before, about another man who died on a river in Canada. I told you then that I didn’t know the meaning of the word.”

“You buy a dictionary since then?” Slam asked her, quietly, his tone taking the sting out of the words.

She didn’t reply, kept looking east. Her eyes were a little moist; Holly thought it might be the light. “It’s not something I could ever say to him, Slam. And even if he felt the same way…” she broke it off, weary at the attempt. “There are things normal people have, things like love and family and a future where you can face yourself in the mirror every morning. Bruce and I will never have those things, Slam. And if I pretended, just for an second, that we did...he’d ask me to go.”

“Do you want those things?” Holly asked her, rubbing Selina’s cold fingers. The two women were back in that airless little room at the Hotel Edwards in Crime Alley, nursing each other through each day, waiting on a soiled mattress for their next customer. Selina touched Holly’s cheek, taking a deep breath.

“Thanks for the clothes, hon,” she whispered. Holly nodded, a tear spilling down the side of her face. Slam swallowed hard, not knowing what to say. He watched as Selina unpacked the two boxes from the trunk, the cats spilling out of the Plymouth to wind around her legs.

“We’re just a phone call away,” Slam told her, squeezing her forearm. Selina nodded, not trusting her voice.

“Don’t come around again,” she told them. “Not until it’s finished.”

****************

Selina made it back to the manor slowly, juggling the two boxes as she tried not to step on one of the cats. They were city animals, born and bred in the alleys of Gotham. The space and clean air of the Bristol countryside was a little overwhelming to them. They stuck close to Selina and moved hesitantly as she entered the house, sniffing everything in site and mewing plaintively. “You two are complete and total wusses,” she informed them.

Selina set the boxes down near the stairs, making a mental note to try and collect the boxes before Alfred shuffled them off to some back room. The possessions in the boxes didn’t matter much to her. Bruce had certainly bought her enough clothing to last until April, and Selina had never kept many personal items around her apartment. She didn’t have many personal items to begin with. Very little had survived the firestorm of her childhood. Whatever hadn’t been taken to pay her father’s debts or stolen at the orphanage had been pawned long before she’d resorted to selling her body for her next meal.

Selina moved down the hall into Bruce’s study. She paused before the great oil portrait of Bruce’s parents hanging above the fireplace. Selina frowned, trying to discern from their expressions what they had been like. She knew they had been able to inspire the kind of love and loyalty necessary to make Bruce’s mission seem worthwhile. The tall, strong-chinned, dark haired man and beautiful woman in the portrait were almost a different species to her. They had been the kind of parents who’d wanted what they’d brought into the world.

Selina set the hands on the grandfather clock’s face to 10:47 and stepped back as an elaborate security system silently unlocked and granted her access to the Batcave. It wouldn’t have taken her long to figure a way in by herself, but Bruce had given her the combination weeks ago as one of his rare, random displays of trust. He would leave her the keys to the Batcave but refused to tell her what was so important about April 1st. Selina had resolved to figure that out for herself.

She descended into the cave using the staircase behind the clock, counting the number of steps in the darkness of the passage. It was an old thief’s habit, counting steps, memorizing the placement of obstacles. You never knew when a hasty exit would be required, and a true professional would never blunder over a forgotten ottoman or into an undiscovered corner. She reached the first level of the cave, crossed over to an elevator and descended to a second level. Casting a fleeting glance at the central computer system, Selina chose instead to head for the gym.

She’d been spending most of her time there, fighting to regain the strength she’d lost in Huntress’ attack. Her thigh still ached sometimes, particularly in the damp chill of early spring, but Selina had regained all of her lost flexibility and athletic prowess. In fact, thanks to the state-of-the-art gym and health facilities in the Batcave, she was in better physical shape than ever before. Still, she hesitated at the possibility of returning to her activities as Catwoman. Bruce hadn’t asked her why, at least not yet. She suspected he was relieved to discover her unwillingness to resume her former activities. Not that he’d ever just come out and say so, of course.

Selina did a few warm-up stretches, some running on one of the treadmills, and then hit the balance beam. Gymnastics had always been her favorite activity, from the short time with her parents in the East End to the orphanage, to the Young Offenders facility, and even when living on the street. She had always managed to find time for it, even if was only a few hours a day prowling on the rooftops of Gotham to practice tumbling. It allowed her to shut everything out and fully concentrate on her breathing, every small movement and muscle. Nothing matched the calm and centeredness of that moment. Holly had tried to explain heroin to her once, and Selina had only understood much later, in one of those moments of calm. Drugs could be a retreat. So could meditation. Selina found release in the muscle-deadening exhaustion of exercise, and if she could only reach that place today, everything else would seem so much clearer…

“You’ve got beautiful form,” a woman’s voice was telling her. The voice was slightly familiar and Selina opened her eyes, jerking her head around to see who was addressing her. Her balance on the thin beam didn’t waver. She remained perfectly poised on one leg, her other limbs extended to maintain perfect equilibrium.

A pretty woman with glasses and shoulder-length red hair was watching her. Selina noted the wheelchair, wondering which cave entrance was handicap-accessible.

“Thanks,” she said, keeping her tone even. Who the hell?-

“We’ve never met,” the woman said quickly. “Barbara Gordon. Batgirl.”

“Oh,” Selina said, wincing at her own banality as soon she said it. Catwoman should have said something much snappier. The kids practically expected it. Selina straightened, dropping the graceful posture, her arms held limply at her sides. “Oracle.”

The woman nodded, eyes framed by thin, fashionable glasses flashing something Selina couldn’t interpret. “Where did you study?”

“Study?” Selina repeated, closing her eyes again. Great, she thought. You’re coming off like a real genius. “Oh, that. I guess I just picked it up somewhere.”

Barbara didn’t seem impressed and Selina realized that was what she’d been trying to do. Impress her, that skinny little red-headed girl who’d once been Batgirl many years ago. Gordon’s daughter. Another piece of Bruce’s life fell into place. She marveled at the carefully arranged fictions of Batman’s world…and then her heart caught in her chest. The wheelchair. Barbara Gordon, that goofy kid who’d never quite managed to bring Catwoman down…

“What about you?” Selina found herself asking, her mind screaming. All she could see was the chair and Bruce’s sad expression when she’d asked about his extended family intruding into his life.

“I was on the school team,” Barbara explained, watching Selina carefully. “It was gymnastics all through high school and college. They once offered me a chance to try out for the Olympics.”

The memory was strange, just another example of a long string of physical and mental accomplishments and one Barbara preferred not to recall. Six years in this damn chair, and all of a sudden it was coming back to her. How it felt to be weaving in among the parallel bars, tumbling into a complicated routine, balancing with perfect grace on a beam no more than an inch in width. And sailing over the rooftops at night, ready to foil the crimes of someone like the woman before her. It all came rushing back, the enormity of what had been taken from her. Barbara closed her eyes, opening them to find that Selina had hopped off the balance beam and approached her.

“Did you make the tryout?” Selina asked quietly. Barbara shook her head.

“I was…busy. The Joker-”

“You would have made it,” Selina assured her quietly, sincerely. “I remember the way you used to move. You’d have been a shoe-in.”

Barbara backed up a little in the chair, shaking. She’d come down here expecting a fight or some of that sexually-charged banter Catwoman was so famous for. The last thing she’d anticipated, or wanted, was sympathy. Surprise and confusion made her tone much more bitter than she’d intended.

“And what would you know about it?”

“I know that I was never asked to try out for the US team,” Selina replied, backing off a little, giving the other woman her space. “It would have been an honor. Hell, it would have been an honor to audition for the Lithuanian team, just to say I’d had a shot.”

Barbara kept silent, her eyes narrowed. Selina looked almost…regretful, she decided. Barbara wanted to say something about convicted felons not being allowed on the Olympic team, but the words failed to come out right. All she could manage was a muffled “huh”. It seemed like such a normal dream for a cat burglar and feline fatal.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” Selina asked, catching Barbara off guard.

She recovered, back on more familiar, adversarial territory. “No.”

Selina nodded. “That’s fair. No reason you should. I mean, you gave up a lot to catch people like me.”

“We’ve all given up a lot,” Barbara informed her through clenched teeth. “Bruce seems to have forgotten that, but I haven’t.”

“Have you explained it to him?”

“I’ve tried,” Barbara replied, her tone sounding more tired than exasperated. “He’s refused to listen to me.”

“You want me out, huh? Think I‘m a bad influence?” Selina asked, shifting her weight. “Or haven’t you heard? I’m reformed.”

Barbara snorted. “I don’t believe that you are. I did some checking and turned up some things even Bruce didn’t find. You’ve got a lot of blood on your hands.”

Selina met the other woman’s eyes, guessing at what Barbara knew and how much of it was fact. She decided it didn’t matter. If it made Gordon’s daughter feel better to believe she had some kind of dirt to use as a bargaining chip, Selina was willing to let her have it.

Up to a point.

“I don’t believe in regret,” Selina said, her voice clear and strong. “But it seems to be a religion with you people. If you’re looking for an apology…”

“I’m looking for an explanation,” Barbara cut her off. “I want to know what your angle is.”

Selina raised her hands, palms towards Barbara. “No angle. I’m just trying to put some things right.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in regret.”

Selina paused, her eyes twinkling. “Well, I figure, I hang around here long enough, maybe I’ll learn.”

******************

Bruce stepped out of the town car, loosening his tie a little. He was wearing a summer-weight gray suit: spring had finally arrived. The mornings were still cool but by mid-afternoon the sun had begun to warm the land. Bristol was hard and ugly at dawn. By at three o’clock the Gotham countryside was transformed into dappled hills sweet with the first dusting of greenery. It had been many, many years since he’d noticed the change in seasons from the landscape alone. Clark was always pointing out something about trees or new leaves or fresh earth. Today, in the warming spring, Bruce could almost understand the farm boy’s enthusiasm for the feel of sunlight on his face.

Barbara was exiting the Manor near the south lawn. Bruce approached her cautiously. They had been engaged in a cold war the last few months. Barbara hadn’t come up to the manor since Christmas and Batman had not frequented the Clocktower to consult with Oracle in the months since. He watched as she wheeled herself down a short ramp, headed for a small parking area a hundred feet away. When she was halfway there he chose to reveal himself, materializing in broad daylight nearly at her elbow. Truth be told, he liked startling the Gordons.

“Jesus!” she yelped, closing her eyes. Bruce waited until she had composed herself, which she did quickly. “I think Dad was right: you need a bell around your neck.”

Bruce smiled slightly, letting her know he wanted to put an end to the cold war between them. She might disapprove of his relationship with Selina, and much as it irritated him to have others involved in his business…he needed her. “You’re not going?” he asked. Barbara met his eyes and held them for a beat, trying to interpret the subtext beneath his question.

“I’ve got what I came for,” she replied, returning her hands to the sides of her wheelchair. “I didn’t come to talk to you.”

“Alfred-”

“Not Alfred, either,” Barbara informed him, pushing herself forward over the smooth, level walkway leading to where she’d parked her car. “Catwo-…Selina.”

Bruce didn’t reply, didn’t allow his face to show surprise or concern. He waited until she spoke again, watching Barbara’s face carefully. She tucked a thick piece of red hair behind her ear, the gold highlights in her curls shimmering in the light. He’d begun to notice a few gray strands in the last few years, since the ‘quake.

“Dick’s coming into town tomorrow night. He wants us to have dinner. I thought I’d invite you and Selina.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, Dick thought I should invite Selina. He still feels bad about what happened to her.”

“He wasn’t responsible for-” Bruce started, but Barbara cut him off.

“See, that’s what great about Dick,” Barbara said, the afternoon sun reflecting off her glasses. “He doesn’t feel guilty, because he knows it wasn’t his fault. But he feels bad for her anyway. It’s not remorse or pity with him, it’s sympathy. A distinction he didn’t learn from his father.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes and said nothing. Barbara squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. This was supposed to be a peace offering. And it may have been Dick’s idea, but I agreed to drive all the way out here with a white flag. I just-” Barbara sighed, resting her slim, white hands in her lap. “I’m tired of fighting you. I guess I keep hoping that what I say to you matters.”

“It does,” Bruce assured her. “You know I value your opinion.”

Barbara shook her head. “I’m not some kid you took in and trained; I was nearly twenty when I put on that Batgirl suit. But I’m still a junior partner, Bruce. And I can’t tell you how to live your life. Neither can Dick, or Alfred, or Dad. We all love you, but-”

Bruce looked away. Barbara closed her mouth, sorry for him. “Just come to dinner, okay? Make an effort.”

He watched as she pressed forward towards her car, her handling of the chair smooth and efficient. Had he been another man, he might have stopped her with a kind word or a hand on her shoulder. Instead, Bruce watched as she pulled herself into her specialized van, packed the chair away behind the driver’s seat, and pulled smoothly down the long drive winding out of the manor’s grounds. Bruce stood there a moment longer, then went inside. The sun had begun to feel strange on his face.

Alfred was not at the door to greet him and Bruce remembered it was the third Friday of the month: his butler was in the north hall, dusting a succession of family portraits. Bruce proceeded into the main foyer, deftly avoiding some boxes stacked haphazardly near the staircase. A little tabby cat meowed plaintively, winding around his legs. Bruce stooped and picked up the cat, scratching its ear. The cat purred loudly, the volume and tone surprising him.

“I don’t supposed Alfred is aware of our new houseguest,” Bruce said.

Behind him, from the darkness of his study where he knew she was watching, Selina responded. “I might have once worn purple leather, but I’m not crazy. I figure, we could tell him the cats are evidence in a crime. Exhibit A and B. He won’t know the difference. I’ve seen your trophy room. Weird, wild stuff,” she muttered, doing her best Johnny Carson. The allusion was lost on Bruce.

She came forward into the hall, and Bruce tried to hand her the cat. She shook her head, folding her arms, letting Bruce hold Marcelo for a few more minutes. “How was your day?” she asked him.

Bruce frowned. In the side-light coming in from the windows lining the hall, she noticed faint wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, lines of worry and pain she’d never noticed before.

“Fine,” he replied. “And yours?”

Selina smiled, keeping her eyes on his hands as he stroked the cat’s fur. “One of your little canaries stopped by. She’s tougher than I remembered. And she doesn’t have much use for me.”

“You did dislocate her arm once,” Bruce reminded her. Selina’s expression faltered and she decided to laugh.

“That wasn’t my fault,” she informed him. “The little twerp knew that stairway was rotting out, but she was so busy trying to catch me she forgot to follow my footsteps. If she’d only paid attention-” Selina smiled and shook her head. “She’s lucky I caught her. That was a ninety-foot drop and if she’d fallen, she’d have gotten worse than a sore shoulder.”

Bruce didn’t reply, watching the cat’s expression. The tabby was feigning sleep, hoping to stay in his arms a while longer.

“How did it happen?” Selina asked him softly as the sunlight faded a little from the hall. “I’d heard the Joker went after Gordon’s daughter, but-”

“He didn’t know she was Batgirl,” Bruce replied softly. “He was after Gordon. Barbara happened to be in the apartment that day.”

She knew from the way he’d said it, using such a quiet, deliberate tone, that Bruce would tell her that and no more. But it was enough. Selina began to stroke the tabby’s back, leaving the ears for Bruce. She tried to tell him that he couldn’t have prevented the madman’s attack or that Barbara’s injuries weren’t his fault, but the words kept getting stuck in her throat as she thought about the long, thin track marks on Holly’s arms. And Maggie’s dull, dead expression. He would never believe her, and she wouldn’t believe it either.

“Should we go?”

Bruce looked up at her in question. Selina swallowed, forcing her smile to reach her eyes. “Dinner.”

He sighed, stooping to set the cat on the floor. “Did she tell Alfred about her plans?”

Selina nodded. Bruce rose from his crouching position. “Then we don’t have a choice,” he said simply. She grinned, resisting the urge to make the appropriate ‘Whipped!’ sound-effect and gesture.

Bruce watched her for a moment, her face soft and relaxed in the light streaming through the windows. Selina’s emerald eyes were luminous in the light and her mouth parted softly. He remembered the feel of her lips closing around him in the night, coaxing him to release. And the taste of her skin. Bruce leaned forward, kissing her deeply. Selina slid her hands around his neck, pressing her body against his.

“Excuse me,” Alfred’s clipped accent interrupted, breaking the spell. Selina slid back down Bruce's body, flat-footed again on the wood floor. A seductive smile played about her lips. Bruce resisted the urge to send Alfred away.

“What is it?” he asked, his tone as inhospitable as ever. Alfred ignored him.

“The secure line, sir,” Alfred told him, casting an apologetic glance at Selina. “Seems there is a riot taking place at Blackgate Prison. Master Tim and Ms. Cassandra are on the way. Shall I hold dinner?”

Bruce grunted, brushing past Selina and making for the cave entrance in his study. She glanced at Alfred, shrugged and trailed after him. “I’m coming with you.”

Bruce turned halfway down the staircase. Selina was silhouetted against the light coming in from the clock entrance. He couldn’t see her face or guess at her expression. “Are you sure?”

“Nope,” she told him directly. “I’m terrified. I couldn’t fight off some crossbow-wielding psycho and I can’t seem to sleep for more than an hour without some nightmare waking me up, but you need backup. Someone with more experience than your two little birds.”

He nearly refused her offer. She had the physical skill, but Helena’s attack had damaged her will to use them. Bruce wanted to tell her about Bane’s attack and his long recovery but he simply nodded to her, turning and heading back down the staircase. Selina’s footsteps, steady and sure, echoed after him. She wasn't doing this for him. Selina had nothing to prove.

He keyed the combination to the costume vault and she didn’t feign surprise to see her black leather Catwoman costume there, stacked on a shelf next to his Batsuit. He reflected that it had been much harder to adjust to the sight of her toothbrush in the bathroom than the presence of her costume next to his. The two costumes, both woven of light-eating black material, seemed to fit next to each other.

They were dressed and in the Batmobile speeding towards Gotham within five minutes.

*******************

Dick tapped his finger against the linen cloth covering Barbara’s kitchen table, trying not to cough. Every time the elevator binged down the hall, he rose, smoothed back his hair and checked to make sure his fly was done up. Barbara had watched him do it five times in a row before she found she couldn’t stand it anymore. The next time the elevator dinged, Barbara placed a restraining hand on his thigh before she was forced to stab him with a fork.

“They’ll be here soon.”

Dick picked up a knife and balanced the tip of it on the end of his index finger. “I’m hoping they won’t show at all,” he confessed. “I mean, Christmas was awkward enough, but…”

“This was your idea,” she reminded him, grinning. Dick smiled, kissed her and went back to juggling the cutlery.

“I still think it’s a good idea.”

“Then why are you so nervous?” Barbara asked pointedly. Dick shrugged, flipping the knife and catching it back on its point.

“Because I’ve never had to have dinner with Catwoman before.”

Barbara sipped at her water, sniffing the air a little to see if the Chinese food warming in the oven had caught on fire. She had a habit of self-destructing her dinner parties. “She isn’t so bad, I guess. A little flippant, but I’ve made it a policy never to hold that against a person.”

“Thank God,” Dick replied, kissing her again before going back to his balancing act just as the elevator dinged again. The knife tumbled to the floor as Dick jumped up. Barbara strained to pick up the knife as the door buzzer sounded. She replaced the knife on the table and Dick looked at her.

“Ten second rule,” she explained, sticking her tongue out at him. “Just make sure Bruce sits there.”

“He’ll notice,” Dick cautioned, going to answer the door.

“Good.”

“Now who’s being flippant?” Dick asked as he admitted their dinner guests.

Bruce entered first, his eyes sweeping Barbara’s apartment, noting every small detail and filing it away. He was slightly bruised and moved slowly. Tim had informed Dick about the Blackgate riot and said only that they’d gotten it “under control pretty quickly”. Dick could imagine how nasty it had gotten. Right after the ’quake, Bruce had sent him to stabilize the situation at Blackgate by himself. It had been difficult, but Dick had managed it. It gave him a guilty sort of satisfaction to see Bruce’s black eye and slight limp.

Selina followed him in, clad in a sophisticated plum-colored dress and ballet flats. Her hair was swept up and piled on top of her head in a calculatedly-carefree style. She was growing her hair longer, Dick noted, and bore no physical evidence of her role in subduing the riot at Blackgate. Tim had been in awe of her during the riot.

“Nice digs,” Selina complimented. “I haven’t seen a genuine Ravali vase in years!”

Barbara glanced at the table’s centerpiece, a blue stained-glass vase holding a spray of brilliant sunflowers from her father’s garden. She had no idea what a Ravali vase was: the urn had been a gift from a friend of her father’s, a wealthy, well-connected politician from Chicago. Barbara refrained from asking Selina how much it was worth on the black market.

“Have a seat,” Barbara told them. Bruce sat obligingly on the sofa. Selina crossed the room to stand at the window.

“You can almost see Bludhaven from there,” Dick informed her. Selina nodded.

“I haven’t been to the ’Haven since before the earthquake.”

“It hasn’t changed much,” Dick said, smiling, uncomfortable. “Still a toilet.”

“No worse than Gotham Heights or the Bowery,” Selina replied. Barbara had wheeled over next to Bruce and was whispering something to him. Selina met Dick’s eyes and he was the first to look away, grinning awkwardly.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“A hundred percent. Although the next time someone aims a crossbow at me, I think I'll duck.”

Dick fell silent, watching the city from Barbara’s sixtieth-story window. “How do you like the Manor?”

“I keep thinking it must have been a very cold place to grow up in,” she said, green eyes watching him intently.

“Well, not really. Central heating and all that…oh,” he finished lamely, finally getting it. She grinned at him.

“It’s okay, kid. I didn’t mean just for you. Bruce too. All those empty rooms…” she sighed. “Any idea why he had the place rebuilt instead of just moving into the city?”

Dick frowned. “I never really asked him about that. I guess, to hide the cave-”

“Dinner!” Barbara chirped from the kitchen.

They sat down to eat, consuming Thai noodles with sesame sauce and steamed vegetables. Bruce ate little and said less. Selina and Dick kept up a the majority of conversation, much to their surprise. Selina had always liked the skinny kid in the Robin suit, and she was surprised to discover that he was such a funny, well-adjusted young man. His humor was self-effacing and irreverent but never cruel. Barbara seemed content to listen to the two banter back and forth but Bruce had immediately retreated to his own inner world, apparently using meditation to pass the hours until he could return to the cave.

Dinner ended a little late. Barbara served two pots of tea before Dick and Selina had stopped exchanging wisecracks. Bruce’s cell phone rang, surprising them all. He snatched the phone out of his jacket pocket and retreated to Barbara’s bedroom. Barbara shrugged, heading for the kitchen to tidy up the remains of the food. “I guess we bored them a little,” Selina said.

Dick shook his head. “That’s the way he is. Bruce isn’t good with people.”

“No kidding,” Selina replied, cocking her head towards the kitchen. “What about your girlfriend?”

“She’s not much good around criminals.”

Selina smiled brashly. “I’m glad you’re not so discerning.”

“I’m just happy to find someone besides Tim who’ll laugh at my jokes,” Dick confessed. “We should have done this a long time ago. I mean, if you were nervous about meeting us…”

“I wasn’t nervous,” Selina replied. “But I don’t think Bruce was in a hurry to get all of us in a room together.”

“Oh?” Dick prompted.

“He’s a little embarrassed,” she confided in him. Dick chuckled at the idea of Bruce being embarrassed. His adopted father was never, ever wrong. About anything. Even to suggest that he was wrong would be sacrilege. But Selina didn’t seem interested in playing by the rules.

“He’s never needed our approval before,” Dick told her, the smile fading from his voice. “Babs and I were just worried that he was letting you in too quickly. We only knew you as a thief-”

“I’m still a thief,” she reminded him. “I just steal from the bad guys now. Not that Tall Dark and Gloomy approves, but I guess he sees it as a step in the right direction. And he wasn’t embarrassed about getting your approval. Bruce is a little ashamed, I think.”

“Of you?”

Selina shot him a look that women reserved specifically for men who were being incredibly thick-headed. She crossed her legs and coughed, making it clear to Dick that no man with a pulse would ever be ashamed to be seen with her. Before the blush creeping up his neck began to show on his face, Dick swallowed and continued, wondering how Selina was able to turn on her sexuality so easily. Even Barbara, who in Dick’s opinion was the most beautiful and intelligent woman in the world, took some time working up to full-on femme fatale. You could clock Selina’s transition with an egg timer.

“Look, he’s what, 37? And this is the first time in his life he’s having sleepovers with a girl,” Selina said in a false whisper. “Suddenly he’s not Batman, he’s just a man. And as alarming as that is to him, it’s worse because now it's clear to the rest of you too.”

“He told you that?” Dick asked, shocked. Selina shot him the Look again. Dick smiled, settling back in his chair. “Okay, stupid question. But he’s really embarrassed because now we know he’s getting laid on a regular basis?”

“I wouldn’t have put it so bluntly,” Selina told him and Dick got the impression that she would have, without hesitation, only he’d said it first. “But yes. He’s a little uptight, especially when it comes to sex. I don’t think he particularly likes to be touched.”

Dick nodded, thinking about all those awkward, half-hearted attempts at hugs Bruce had made over the years which had only occurred in life-or-death situations or just after a major tragedy.

“Why do you think that is?” he asked Selina.

She leaned back, resting her arm on the back of the chair. “I have this…friend. Big guy, red cape, lots of frequent flier miles.”

“Clark?” Dick asked. Selina nodded.

“He stopped by the manor a few times to check up on me,” she explained quickly, wondering what, if anything, Bruce had told Dick about those long months at the manor. “We had some good conversations. I know Bruce is the resident psychologist of the Justice League - and explosion expert, and strategist, and…well, pretty much all-around go-to guy, except when it comes to people skills. That’s Clark’s job. So I guess Superman is a bit of an expert. He’s known Bruce for years, right?”

Dick nodded, fascinated. He’d never known much about Bruce and Clark’s relationship beyond the fact that Batman made Superman nervous. Clark sometimes looked like he wanted to ask Bruce out for a beer, but Bruce wasn’t exactly the most approachable human being on the planet. He’d always wondered if they were friends, and if so, what that meant to Bruce.

“Well, he’s had a lot of time to observe him as an equal. Time that maybe the rest of you haven't had. And he told me something about Bruce, something I try to hang on to when I’m tempted to pack up and head back to the East End.”

“What?” Dick asked, hooked. Selina’s mouth quirked upwards in a smile and she leaned closer, a conspiratorial tone in her hushed voice.

“He’s lonely.”

Dick leaned back and laughed. He’d been prepared for a huge revelation. Selina grinned at him. “Bruce happens to be the brains of the Justice League, too. Clark thought he was explaining something that wasn’t completely obvious to everyone. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t one of Bruce’s best-kept secrets.”

“Did you know? I mean, before you and Bruce-”

“Sure,” Selina shrugged. “But the trick is, _Bruce_ doesn’t realize how lonely he is. I mean, I think a part of him recognizes the fact that he’s an isolated, emotionally aloof man who can’t form close relationships unless someone gets in his face and demands that he love them. But he can’t connect that with such a basic human emotion like loneliness. Maybe he thinks it’s indigestion.”

“Indigestion?” Dick repeated.

“That’s Clark’s theory,” Selina replied. “Anyway, Clark convinced me that, deep down, Bruce wants more. He needs more. He just re quires a bit of coaxing.”

“And you’re willing to-”

Selina shook her head, the amusement in her eyes dying slowly. “I’m more like…the opening act.”

Dick opened his mouth to argue with her but stopped when he saw how completely transformed she was. A moment ago she’d been laughing, mocking Bruce’s self-imposed isolation and the idea that Clark, of all people, would notice. Now she was a different person and Dick saw it would be his fate to be constantly surrounded by the moodiest people on the planet.

“What do you mean?”

She sighed, leaning forward. “I’m not a nice girl, Dick. You’ve known that for years. So has he.”

“But that doesn’t mean that-” Dick caught himself. Two months ago, he’d been ready to condemn this woman for her past. Now, in the space of one evening, one conversation, he saw Selina Kyle for who she was, not what she had been. The strength and beauty and sheer survival ability of her awed him for a moment. Dick began to feel very afraid for her, and for Bruce. If Bruce let this one slip through his fingers…

“His family built Gotham, Dick. His name is on every library and court house and park in this city. He can trace his family back for nineteen generations to the founding of America. Whoever he ends up with will be worthy of that history, not some twist from the East End. Clark dropped hints that Bruce and Wonder Woman-”

“That’s ridiculous,” Dick replied, outraged. What the hell had Clark been thinking? “Diana’s a nice person but she and Bruce are like oil and water. So she’s a Princess? So what? You’re-”

“I know what I am,” Selina said quietly, resigned. “I’ve made too many mistakes in my life to deserve…” she trailed off, closing her eyes. “The best I can hope for is some kind of redemption. If all we ever have is confined to the hours between sunset and sunrise-”

“Aren’t you being a bit dramatic?” Dick interrupted.

“This from a guy who wears skin-tight spandex,” Selina muttered. “I’m never going to be anybody’s wife. Or mother. But it isn’t the same for Bruce. He has a duty to this city that has nothing to do with tights or capes. And I can’t be a part of that.”

“You’re what he needs,” Dick told her. “Even if you’re not what he thinks he wants. Look, I know Bruce can be a bit of an snob, maybe better than anyone. But he adopted me, and I’m just the son of circus performers. He took in Jason Todd, and he’d caught Jason stealing tires off the Batmobile! Commissioner Gordon is his best friend and the guy’s a beat cop from Chicago. Bruce isn’t as tied to tradition as you think, and I’m sure that if you gave him a chance-”

Selina smiled sadly, thinking he sounded a little like Holly. Still such a young kid in so many ways. “You know who his father was?”

“Yeah,” Dick said quickly. “Bruce never really talked about him, but…”

“And you know who my father was,” Selina said. “Everything Bruce and I have in common fits into a little box of pain and regret. There’s not a lot of room left for anything else, a future being first on a long list.”

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself,” Dick put in, aching for her. He had no idea she’d given this so much thought. Every horrible thing he and Barbara had said about her was so far off that Dick was ashamed to call himself a detective. But Bruce knew. Had always known. “He loves you.”

Selina shrugged. “Men like him, even exceptional men, don’t marry their mistresses. I learned that from my father.”

Dick lowered his head. Bruce usually shut down when he mentioned his parents. Selina seemed to cut from the same mold. “You know, sometimes you’re wrong about people, and sometimes you’re _wrong_.”

She looked up, ready to argue with him some more. But Dick wasn’t talking about Bruce. He watched her with naked regret in his eyes. “I was thinking of the last time I saw you. Catwoman, I mean. I guess it would have been about three years ago. You’d been shot in the leg and poisoned with fear gas. It took five of us to bring you down and we’d been trained by the best. You never cracked. We couldn’t even get you to admit that you were Selina Kyle.”

“You thought I’d shot Gordon,” Selina said softly. “I guess you felt you were justified.”

Dick continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “I’ve felt so guilty about that for such a long time. You were hurt and frightened and we just left you in that warehouse.”

“You didn’t call the cops,” Selina reminded him. “Believe me, I appreciated that. You saved me from a prison sentence.”

Dick shook his head. “We should have done more. You weren’t responsible for what happened to Gordon, and…and we’re supposed to be the good guys! We just left you. How can we expect to help anyone in this city if we treat innocent people like that?”

“I was never innocent, kid,” Selina said darkly. Dick closed his eyes, thinking of those bondage pictures taken of her when she was a young teenager. She was wrong.

“Bruce always thought you were. He still does,” Dick amended. “Barbara and I couldn’t understand why he was with you. Why, after all the women he’d turned away from, he picked you. I guess it has to do with innocence. You’ve done some terrible things, Selina,” Dick said honestly. “But you’re still a good person. That means more to him than anything else. You give him hope. And I don’t think any of the blue-bloods Bruce Wayne is supposed to end up with could give him that. Neither could Wonder Woman. You’re the reason he’s Batman. Because if you can find redemption, then so can he.”

Selina stared at him, hope and disbelief warring in her eyes.

“Do you love him?” Dick asked. Selina didn’t know how to respond. She lowered her head.

Behind them, in the shadows, Bruce slipped away.

 

*****************


	2. A Night Off

The drive back to the manor was silent. They were in the Corvette from that long-ago winter afternoon, Bruce at the wheel, his eyes fixed firmly on the road. Selina stared out the window, watching the moon rise over the corpse of trees lining the highway out to Bristol. 

“How much did you hear?” she asked him, point-blank. Bruce checked her expression in the rear-view mirror.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he stonewalled. 

Selina shifted her legs, annoyed. When he wasn’t being deliberately obtuse he turned into the most incredible liar. “Are we patrolling tonight?” she asked, content to let the matter rest for now. 

Bruce shook his head. “You’ve had too much wine.”

“One glass. I’m a big girl, Bruce.”

He sighed. “It’s late, Selina. And tonight has been quiet. I checked Batgirl’s status reports after dinner. I think we can take a night off.”

“Pardon?” Selina asked, incredulous. Bruce hadn’t taken a single night off in the two months she’d been staying at the Manor. In fact, he never took a break. He hardly slept and rarely ate. Selina had begun to suspect he was actually a robot. It would explain his sometimes icy demeanor and his…stamina. 

Bruce guided the car into the unmarked lane which signaled the entrance to Wayne Manor’s widespread grounds. “Blackgate was exhausting for both of us. So was dinner,” he acknowledged. 

He checked her expression again, his words echoing between them. The carefully controlled distance between them had been strictly maintained for two months. He shared a bed with her and the occasional meal, but nothing more. Sometimes days, even weeks had passed without a long conversation between them. And, remarkably, Selina had understood. When she’d begun her physical therapy, she’d withdrawn and become as cold as he had been, focusing on getting well. Bruce had suspected she was simply eager to live on her own again in the East End. 

One evening in late February, he’d come home to find all of her clothing removed from the closet, her toiletries gone from the bathroom. Rather than ask her about the missing items he’d gone on patrol. That night he had broken the jaw and ruptured the spleen of a young thief. And when he’d returned to the house in the morning, he’d entered to the bedroom they had been sharing, expecting the worst. Bruce had found Selina asleep in the bed, everything back in place. Later, Alfred had told him he had been cleaning the suite and moved everything to a guest bedroom. 

Bruce could still feel the relief of that moment when he discovered that she hadn’t left him. It was not an experience he wanted to repeat. From that point on, when he’d realized how much a part of him she’d become, he’d withdrawn even more, hoping to lessen the pain of the inevitable. But the days passed, and Selina was still at the Manor, waiting for him to return each morning. And every day had brought its own kind of small relief. He’d cared for her for months, maybe years, and the only way he knew how to cope with that fact was to pull away. 

Bruce had the feeling that distance was no longer an option. “I’d like to just enjoy you for an evening.”

“Enjoy me?” Selina repeated, stunned. A robot, definitely a robot. Or maybe a clone. “I’m usually the one to make the first move, and-”

“I don’t mean sex,” he told her bluntly. “Isn’t there something else you’d like to do?”

Selina was silent for a moment and as the quiet continued, Bruce began to feel very, very nervous. He had no idea what she liked to do for fun in her daylight persona. Catwoman might suggest a robbery or a complicated confidence game but he had no idea what Selina Kyle would want to do. As always, the unknown terrified him. He should have done research. He should have…

“Have you ever played Monopoly?”

**************************

“No, see, you can’t do that. You need a Get Out of Jail Free card, or you have to wait for your next turn and land on the right square,” Selina was explaining through her laughter. Bruce obligingly moved his silver figurine of Brianiac back to its original position. She handed him the dice, her hand grazing his. Bruce refused to let her distract him.

He rolled a six, moved his piece the appropriate number of spaces and landed on the Daily Planet. Selina extended her palm. “That’ll be $500 Superdollars, pal.”

“This is ridiculous,” Bruce told her, reaching into his rapidly-shrinking funds to count out the money. “This game is arbitrary and-”

“And you’re just a sore loser,” Selina informed him, counting the thick wad of bills carefully before adding them to her pile. Bruce raised his eyebrow at her in a very theatrical show of distrust. 

“It’s all there,” he said, indignant. 

“I wasn’t born yesterday, pal,” Selina replied. “You’ve got a reputation as a bit of a cheat.”

“Who told you that?” he demanded, his tone serious. She only smiled at him again, beginning to pack up the board. “That’s it?” he asked.

“Game’s over. You’re out of money and I just bought out your last hotel.”

Bruce checked his pieces on the board, replaying each stage of the game in his mind with perfect recall. Selina was right: Bruce Wayne, corporate head of Wayne Enterprises, scientist, mathematician, world’s greatest detective and founding member of the Justice League, had lost a game of Metropolis Monopoly to Catwoman. And lost badly. He calculated the margin of loss at 3.6%.

“Damn,” he grunted. 

Selina, clad in a silk nightgown and barefoot, raised herself up on her knees to kiss him on the cheek. Some sort of consolation prize, Bruce guessed. 

“Bruce, I’m disappointed in you. Clark was a better loser.” 

“Clark didn’t know you were cheating.”

She feigned shock, her mouth forming into a small, pink ‘O’. “Who, me?”

“And I still lost,” Bruce muttered to himself, incredulous. He was suddenly very glad that he had never offered to play a board game with Dick or Jason. “You won’t…you won’t tell anyone about this, will you?” he asked her stiffly.

Selina set the board on the floor, taking his hand in a solemn vow. “I will never, ever tell anyone that you are the worst Monopoly player in the history of the world.” She sealed her promise by dropping a kiss on his temple. 

Bruce slipped out of her hold, leaning back against the pillows lining the headboard. He was still wearing what he’d worn to dinner, only he’d taken off his tie, jacket and loosened the sleeves of his shirt. Selina decided he looked like any other businessman spending a quiet night with his girlfriend after a hard day at the office. His feet, still sheathed in black cotton socks, extended to the edge of the bed. 

“What now?” he asked, unsure of himself. Selina looked at him in question. “What should we do now?”

Her heart twisted a little. Poor guy had never had a normal evening at home with a girl. Not that her evenings alone with various boyfriends had ever been particularly normal, but…

“Television,” she suggested. He arched an eyebrow, skeptical. “You’ve heard of it, right?”

He nodded, a little leery of the idea. He’d never seen the appeal of television. He would watch it occasionally to keep up with popular culture. A lot of the more recent rouges liked to sprinkle their clues with references to _The Simpsons_ or _Six Feet Under_. But he’d watched to discover the inner workings of the criminal mind, not for enjoyment or entertainment. He was surprised that Selina found either in television.

“Well, how about a movie? I’m sure there’s something good on, and-”

“No movies,” he said flatly, knowing she wouldn’t ask why. One afternoon, after a particularly bad nightmare, he’d woken in a cold sweat to Selina’s concerned gaze. Chokingly, he’d told her everything, starting with _The Mark of Zorro_. It always started with _Zorro_. 

Selina had listened patiently, caressing his shoulder. When it was over, she’d brought him a glass of water and laid quietly next to him until he had fallen asleep. That had been the day she’d moved out of her guest quarters permanently and into his master suite. 

“I’d hate to see how you’d do with a video game, considering Monopoly,” Selina muttered, scrunching her forehead in thought. “Well, I’m fresh out of ideas. What do you like to do for fun?”

Bruce had a momentary vision of one of those silly TV shows, an alien of some kind muttering, “Fun? What is this fun?” 

He shook his head, fighting the sudden desire to don his Batsuit, speed over to Arkham and beat the Riddler to a bloody pulp. The villain’s clues for an entire year had revolved around ALF and reruns of _Miami Vice_. Bruce had wasted so many hours on that dreck that he sometimes hallucinated about a brown puppet in a white suite and turquoise shirt asking if it would be okay to devour a cat.

“I…uh…”

“You must be killer at parties,” Selina smiled, taking pity on him. “Are you still doing that trick with ginger ale? Or do you just pour your champagne out into the nearest unsuspecting plant?”

Bruce didn’t respond. He was too busy kissing her and celebrating the fact that now he had found something they both could enjoy.

*****************


	3. The Warming Spring

Alfred, eyes carefully averted from the bed, entered Master Bruce’s suite at precisely 6am. He approached the bed, placed a gentle hand on his employer’s shoulder, and squeezed. Bruce’s eyes flew open but he didn’t move a muscle, careful not to disturb Selina, who slept peacefully in his arms.

“Master Tim and Miss Cassandra are here, sir,” Alfred told him in a barely-audible whisper.

“I’ll see them in the cave,” Bruce responded in the same low tone.

Alfred nodded and withdrew into the shadows lining the massive bedchamber, breathing a sigh of relief. One never knew what to expect when rousing Master Bruce from deep slumber. When he was a child, Bruce would wake, startled and disoriented, often bursting into tears. Alfred had suspected the young boy sobbed with relief at being pulled from his nightmares, although Bruce had never spoke of it. Later, as he became more and more invested in the violence required to perform as Batman, waking Bruce became a kamikaze mission. He had almost throttled Alfred one afternoon, still seeing before him something that had made Bruce sweat and shake in absolute terror. Alfred had concealed the purple bruises lining his neck carefully. Bruce had never asked why his manservant had suddenly taken to wearing turtlenecks in the middle of July.

Bruce slipped out of bed, drawing a robe over his bare shoulders. Selina sighed, rolled over and slanted her body diagonally across the bed, taking up as much space as humanly possible. In the dark bedroom where no one could see, Bruce grinned, amused at the way her self-interest was manifested even in sleep.

“Coffee or tea this morning, sir?” Alfred inquired from the shadows near the bedroom door.

“I’ll take breakfast with Selina later,” Bruce told his butler. Alfred nodded, then opened his eyes widely to glare at one of the four-footed little beasts who had recently invaded the Manor. The small, deceptively innocent tabby with the improbably moniker of Smitty was digging her claws into Bruce’s $1000 silk sheets. Alfred clenched his teeth tightly, listening as sharp, tiny claws made indelible impressions in the immaculate material.

Alfred had never thought he would miss Ace, but at least the slobbering canine had been honest about his intention to disrupt the well-oiled machinery of the Wayne household. These cats were suspicious creatures who bore close observation.

******************

“…so he gets up and walks out of the police station. The detective sits back in his office for a while, thinking over the guy’s confession, checking it in his mind against the facts. And he notices the name of the china importer on his mug: Keyser Soze. All of the details of the guy’s story were right there in the office! Names, dates, places…everything was a lie! The cop chases after the guy, but he’s long gone. And you never really know what was real, what was fake, and what was just added for atmosphere. Pretty great, huh?”

Cassandra shrugged. Tim sighed, disappointed. So he’d never turn her into a cinephile. They’d tried to watch _Pulp Fiction_ together yesterday, but Cassie had lost interest during most of the dialogue-heavy scenes. She’d loved _XXX_ and _2Fast2Furious_ ; anything loud and kinetic with lots of violence and little plot and dialogue made Cassandra Cain a happy girl. Tim still held out hope for her, however. She’d adored _Finding Nemo_.

“How was patrol?”

They both turned to see Bruce Wayne standing at the foot of the steps leading up to the grandfather clock entrance. He didn’t seem bothered by the cold dampness of the cave despite the fact that he wore only a long robe. Tim felt instantly guilty.

“We thought you’d be down here,” Tim explained quickly. “We can report back later, let you get some sleep…”

“It’s fine,” Bruce assured him. “Did you find anything?”

Tim glanced at Cassandra, silently urging her on. She needed to get used to delivering the mission briefings, especially to Bruce. Cassie was still a little in awe of him, and she tried not to use her slow, laborious speaking voice when Bruce was around. Only Tim seemed to be aware of her reluctance; Bruce certainly hadn’t noticed, and Barbara seemed to be refusing to see it.

Cassie took the hint, as she always did from a physical cue. “Lot was empty,” she told Bruce, her head up and eyes wide and fierce, not at all in sync with her quiet, broken voice. “Only parking lot. No…” she stalled and looked at Tim in sudden panic. He forced himself to keep quiet, coaching her with his eyes.

“No…ob-ser-vers,” she said slowly, carefully enunciating each syllable, a wide smile breaking over her delicate features. Bruce nodded, trying this best to communicate approval. He wasn’t quite as oblivious as Tim believed.

“You swept for hidden cameras and listening devices?” Bruce asked, crossing the first level of the cave and making for the central computer. Tim and Cassie, still wearing their costumes but without the masks, trailed behind. Bruce punched a sequence of keys, bringing up a 3-D display on the holographic screen. It was a blueprint for a parking lot in Tricorner where the April 1st meeting would be held. Bruce had instructed Batgirl and Robin to periodically inspect the lot in order to determine if it was under observation. He knew almost nothing about the circumstances surrounding the meeting but at least understanding as much as possible about the lot and adjacent buildings would prevent a complete disadvantage.

Tim handed Bruce a mini-disc full of recon on the lot. It was a standard 50x70 ft. dirt parking lot, under lease to the city. Two Purple Lilly dealers were in competition for the block and the lot was a DMZ in the local drug trade where junkies could find their fix without worrying about a drive-by. The surrounding tenements were six-to-twelve story housing units, tall, black, formless structures with slitted windows and balconies covered by chicken wire. The projects looked more like prisons than apartment complexes. All of the buildings within a four-block radius had been photographed by Cassandra in detail. Tim had placed surveillance devices in each and every member of the team except Selina had memorized the blueprints.

The 3-D map on the screen identified areas of risk which could not be monitored fully do to danger of compromise. Even Batman couldn’t hide in an open, brightly-lit courtyard for long. Cassie had assessed the situation with Tim and concluded that, as long as they set up security protocols two days in advance of the meet, their safety wouldn’t be significantly compromised.

“You’ll be positioned here,” Bruce told Tim, pointing to a rooftop vantage point overlooking the north, open side of the lot. If the Other arrived by car, they would have to enter from that side. A helicopter drop was possible but Bruce had discounted it. Tricorner was more secure than the East End: the proximity of Gotham Central and the quiet, residential neighborhood to the west made police attention unavoidable if a ‘copter tried to land in the middle of the lot.

“And I want you on this staircase,” he gestured to the 3-D map, showing Cassie where she would be. “It’s a tight fit, but it’s a crucial point of observation. If you’re overwhelmed on the staircase, you can make your break out the window.”

Cassandra nodded, her almond eyes narrowing as she checked the layout of Bruce’s map, contrasting it against her memorized plans of the building.

“Dick, Selina and I will be stationed along the south fence, in the shadows. I want floodlights ready to pop behind us so we aren’t blinded by their headlights when they pull up. Barbara will be in her van on Douglas Street in case we need to tail them. If a chase becomes necessary, Tim, get off the roof as quickly as possible and get into the van with Barbara. She’ll need a point man.” Barbara’s position was denoted by a blue ‘X’, her van placed centrally in an alleyway running behind a building parallel to the lot.

“Any questions?” Bruce asked, nodding as Tim and Cassie shook their heads. Tim wanted to ask why Bruce was so concerned about this meeting. They rarely did this much recon when going up against a major threat like Ra’s Al Ghul. Bruce was typically over prepared but it seemed to Tim like he was actually…frightened. And if Bruce was scared-

“Who’s on patrol tonight?” Bruce asked them, his tone lacking the stern lecturing tone he’d used moments ago. Tim looked at his feet.

“Dad wanted to go to a Knights game tonight,” he said quietly. “I can cancel, but-”

“Go,” Bruce said simply. “You’re off rotation anyway.”

Tim looked up, surprised Bruce had let him off so easily. He should ask for a night off more often, at least during the school week.

Cassandra pulled her Batgirl cowl over her head, the seamless black material obscuring her face completely. Unlike the other costumes, Batgirl’s uniform left no part of her face or body exposed. Tim was secretly jealous of her in freezing weather; he had to be content with thin leggings and short-shorts. Tim had almost killed Dick when the older boy had confessed he was responsible for the design of the Robin costume.

“Cassie, I want you to start patrol tonight on Cape Carmine by Kane Sound and work your way south-west around the Park. If you run into any trouble, get on the Oracom channel right away. Catwoman and I will be working north from Tricorner to the East End. Use a simple grid pattern and stay in contact with the Clocktower.”

Cassandra nodded, her expression hidden by the cowl. Tim raised his eyebrows. Bruce really was nervous. He rarely felt the urge to caution Cassie. She was the best fighter in their small group, which was quite an accomplishment. If there was a situation Cassandra couldn’t handle, Tim had never seen it. But something about this Other terrified Bruce. Tim resolved to ask Dick and Barbara what they thought that meant.

“Anything else?” Bruce asked them. Tim and Cassie shook their heads and Tim began undoing the clasp holding the black Robin cape closed over his shoulders.

Bruce nodded, dismissing them. Tim headed to an entrance on the far side of the cave that attached to the property owned by his father, Jack Drake. Cassie would return to her satellite cave in the city. Bruce headed up the stairs, turned, and nodded in approval at the sight of Cassandra intently studying the computerized copy of the Tricorner lot. He left her in the cave.

*****************


	4. Prisons

They waited on a rooftop just off 32nd street, crouched behind a neon diner sign flashing “Eat At -oes” in bright blue script. Selina’s face, concealed beneath the Catwoman mask and goggles, looked pale and strange in the pulsating light. Batman crouched beside her, watching a building across the street.

“Did you warn him about me?” she asked him softly. Batman didn’t respond, his cape flapping silently in the cool spring breeze. Catwoman stood, stretching her legs, nervous.

“He doesn’t like me much,” she pointed out, noting the way the lights of the city vanished at the river thirty blocks away. “He never did. Christ, he’s shot at me on sight before. What makes you think-”

“You’re part of my life now,” Batman said quietly, thinking of her softly-spoken conversation with Dick the other night after dinner. “Gordon needs to understand that.”

Catwoman looked at him, her hip cocked, arms folded across her chest. “I’m beginning to suspect that you’re a hopeless romantic.”

Batman didn’t respond, still watching the rooftop of Gotham Central just across the busy thoroughfare choked with pedestrians. Spring made Gothamites brave, even after dark.

“Promise me he won’t shoot.”

“He won’t shoot,” Batman told her, rising. “But he will be hostile. And he may accuse you of several crimes which-”

“-which I’ve probably committed,” Catwoman interrupted. “Please don’t forget that I’m usually guilty of whatever people accuse me of. I can’t let your self-delusion rob me of my accomplishments.”

 _I wish you wouldn’t refer to them as ‘accomplishments’_ , Bruce thought, but replied in Batman’s voice, “It’s time.”

He shot a line over the street and swung onto Central’s rooftop, Selina close behind. They landed silently and, as previously agreed, Selina remained concealed in the shadows. Jim waited near the dark signal, his overcoat whipped by the wind. Batman approached him silently.

“Thanks for meeting me,” he began.

Gordon jumped a little, then turned. “No, thank you. My heart needed a jump-start.”

Batman stepped out of the shadows lining the rooftop. “Is Detective Montoya here?”

“She’s waiting downstairs,” Jim told him. “I thought you might want to talk to me privately first. She doesn’t like it when we send her away. Told me last time I should just build a treehouse up here with a ‘No Girls Allowed!’ sign hung out front.”

“I’ve made some progress on the Bradshaw disappearance,” Batman told him, getting right to the point.

Gordon nodded, trying for dispassion as he asked, “Is she still alive?”

“There’s a strong indication that she is,” Batman told him. Gordon let out a deep sigh of relief. Jessica’s pictures reminded him so much of his Barbara, when she was younger. He had seen far too many children lost to the streets of Gotham.

“The yacht that exploded in Rogers Basin last November belonged to her father. And some blackmail photos surfaced with Peter Bradshaw caught in a compromising position,” Batman continued.

“So her father-”

Batman nodded. “He might be the reason Jessica ran away.” It was something he should have realized six years ago when Jessica’s file was first shown to him. Selina had guessed the truth right away. But he hadn’t let himself see it and had yet to figure out why that was. Something to do with that house, and the oil portrait of the Bradshaws hanging in the library…

“There’s something else,” Batman continued before his mind began to dwell on that thought. “The Justice League has located two powerful telepaths operating in Gotham and Bludhaven. One made contact with Nightwing several months ago. We’re meeting the other in a few days.”

“Telepaths?” Gordon asked, incredulous. “They’re metahuman?”

“Looks that way.”

Jim removed his glasses and extracted a handkerchief from his pocket, polishing the lenses in a time-worn habit. “That’s the last thing this city needs,” he muttered. “The GCPD has their hands full dealing with the human psychopaths. Adding metas to the mix will bring this city to her knees.”

Batman nodded in agreement. He stirred uneasily, hoping Selina had remained out of earshot. Jim replaced his glasses, pushing them firmly onto the bridge of his nose.

“I’m afraid of this one, Jim,” Batman said quietly.

Gordon leaned forward to better hear Batman’s low tone. “Why?” he asked softly, not pushing it.

“The telepath who made contact claimed to possess the ability to see the future. Everything we have on the second telepath indicates that they are more powerful than the first. And he - the Prophet - knew everything about us.”

“He knows who you are under that mask,” Jim surmised.

Batman’s head dipped slightly in acknowledgment. He rested his foot on the lip of the roof, watching the city below. “There was a case twelve years ago,” he said, wanting Gordon to understand there was more to his fear of the metas than just a threat to his secret identity. “Ted Kolby. Murdered his father and an apartment building full of people.”

“I remember the case,” Jim told him. “I was just a lowly lieutenant then, but-”

“Kolby claimed to be able to see the future,” Batman continued. “If he hadn’t been stopped…he was insane, Jim. But it was worse, somehow, than even-”

“Than even the Joker?” Gordon asked, his voice filled with raw hate. The Joker had murdered his wife and crippled his daughter. It would be a hard task to convince Gordon that there was anything in Gotham worse than the Clown Prince of Crime.

Batman lowered his head. “I’m sorry, Jim.”

Gordon waved his hand, dismissing the comparison. “Doesn’t matter. You took Kolby down,” he reminded his old friend. “You’ll get this new meta too.”

“Kolby used to say that he’d seen the end of time, and all that was left was him,” Batman said quietly. “Do you think about it much?”

“What?”

“The future.”

Gordon pursed his lips, wondering where Batman was going with this. Introspection wasn’t like him, and the question had caught Gordon off-guard.

“I’m an old man,” Jim said simply. “More years behind than ahead. The future…well, hopefully, Barbara will turn out a couple of grandkids and I’ll spend the rest of my days spoiling them shamelessly.”

Gordon squeezed his eyes closed, feeling his blunder as sharply as Batman had when he’d mentioned the Joker. No grandchildren would fill his friend’s final days. All the Batman had was this city and the war on crime.

“I don’t like uncertainty, Jim,” Batman was saying, speaking slowly, carefully. “And metahumans like Ted Kolby and this new threat know nothing of the uncertainty of the future. Imagine the Joker with that kind of power: that’s what we’re facing.”

“I wish I could help,” Gordon said honestly. “But metahumans, telepaths…I’m just a cop from Chicago. You know I’m useless when it comes to things like that. Most of us mortals are. But not you.”

They were silent for a moment before Gordon spoke again. “What’s the connection between all this and Jessica Bradshaw?” he asked. “You think her father might be the telepath?”

“It’s a possibility,” Batman acknowledged. “But I think Peter Bradshaw is dead. And whoever killed him also wanted me taken out of the picture.”

“How? The explosion at the yacht basin?”

Batman shook his head. “The point wasn’t to kill me. If the telepath is as powerful as we think, I should be dead by now.”

“You’ve survived worse,” Jim reminded him dryly.

“It was carefully arranged to make me vulnerable,” Batman said, ignoring Jim’s point.

“To who?”

“To Catwoman,” Batman told him. Selina emerged from the shadows at his signal, watching Gordon’s reaction carefully.

Jim glanced at Batman in shock, his hand edging towards the .45 Magnum holstered at his side. Batman didn’t react, trusting that Jim would do the right thing.

“I thought she was dead,” Gordon whispered, his eyes still fixed on the sleek, leather-clad silhouette crossing the roof toward him.

“I am,” she replied. “At least officially.” Catwoman came to a stop some ten feet from the two men and made no further attempt to approach them. Her eyes drifted from Gordon’s face to the gun at his side, then back.

“You’re working with her?” Jim asked, turning an angry, hurt gaze towards Batman.

Batman looked at Catwoman and held her eyes. He could feel Jim’s silent plea for denial. The hope in Gordon’s eyes died when Batman nodded.

“Why?” Jim asked again, angry. “You know what she is. Everything we’ve been through, everything we’ve fought against…”

“Maybe that’s the point,” Catwoman broke in, surprising both men. “If he can save me, he can save anyone.” She swallowed hard. She’d kept her tone too light, almost flippant. That was the way she’d always played it with Gordon before.

“Don’t you dare joke about this!” Jim roared, stepping forward. He drew his gun in one fluid motion. Batman tensed, every muscle screaming for action. He would, without hesitation, break James Gordon’s wrist before he had the chance to fire on Selina.

“I’ve put up with your disregard for the law for over a decade!” Gordon told her, the gun’s deadly eye trained on her midsection. “You belong in prison.”

“I’m already in one!” Catwoman told him, her left hand coming up. Instead of the attack on Gordon that Batman expected, she surprised them all by stripping off her mask. Gordon fell back, the gun falling forgotten to his side. Selina stood before the former Police Commissioner, thinking that the man before her was the closest thing Bruce had to a friend. That thought alone forced her to continue.

“I’m not trying to manipulate him or make some plea for amnesty,” she told Gordon in a loud, clear voice. “I belong with him,” she said, green eyes challenging Gordon to deny it.

“You…you what? You love her?” Jim asked, turning to Batman.

Selina waited for him to say it, to say something. More than anything in her life, she wanted to hear Bruce Wayne say he loved her. It was a terrible moment of realization: up to that point, she hadn’t let herself see how vulnerable to him she’d become.

She laughed then, sharp and brittle in the dark. “I told you,” she said to Gordon. “Just another prison.”

Jim stared at her in the moonlight, not sure what to do or say. He recognized her. She was Selina Kyle, socialite, political candidate and murder victim, killed by Catwoman in New York City three years ago. He’d mourned her death for Bruce Wayne. Gordon knew that once, a long time ago, Bruce Wayne had been close to her, maybe loved her. At least now the obvious relationship between Catwoman and Batman made sense.

Jim sighed, the fight going out of him. Twelve years of secrets and hidden agendas and pretending not to know what was going on and now this - this! - would force his hand. He hadn’t wanted it to be this way. Gordon’s shoulders slumped a little and he took his pipe out of his pocket, clenching it between his teeth but not lighting it. The pipe was just another habit, like rotating through his sock drawer and walking every morning.

“Put the mask back on,” he told Selina. She complied, pulling Catwoman’s cowl down over her eyes and becoming another weird symbol of Gotham crime instead of a beautiful, defiant woman. She was exactly the sort of girl Jim had always thought Bruce would end up with. She even had a similar taste in fashion.

Jim took the pipe out of his mouth, facing her directly. “You aren’t welcome here. I think you’re an offense to the institutions of law and order. You’ve blown through every second chance we’ve ever been willing to give you. Now I’m going to tolerate you, at least for his sake, but as long as you’re at Wayne Manor I won’t set foot in his house.”

Selina looked at Bruce. He hadn’t reacted to Gordon’s vow. She hadn’t even known that Gordon was aware Bruce Wayne was Batman.

Catwoman crossed her arms. She knew enough about men to understand that, when forced to chose between their girlfriend and their best friend, no one came out a winner. Still, she waited for Bruce to defend her. To repeat what he’d said to her earlier, that she was part of his life and Gordon should know that. Or to tell his friend that she was only trying to make up for the past. But Batman just stood there on the rooftop of Gotham Central, watching a man he respected condemn the woman he loved.

“I’m leaving after the meeting with the Other,” Selina told them both, making the decision as Bruce’s silence continued. “I’ve clearly overstayed my welcome.”

Batman - Bruce - opened his mouth to say something, but Jim cut him off, pressing his advantage.

“What’s your stake in the meeting?” Gordon asked her.

“The Other sent files, blood tests, photographs, DNA results, to people that wanted me dead for various reasons. The Other wants me out of his life,” she said, gesturing to Batman, “and that’s as good a reason as any to stay, at least until the meeting. Something about me scares the Other.”

Batman shifted uneasily, surprised. He hadn’t told Catwoman anything about the Other.

Selina snuck a glance at Bruce, smiling cynically. “Normally I like awestruck wonder on a man, but don’t look so surprised. Slam and I put it together after I hacked into your computer.”

“I didn’t want you to know because-”

“Yeah,” she silence him, holding up her hand. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Someone tries to kill me, someone else tries to blackmail me, and you tell me squat.”

“I was protecting you!” Batman told her harshly, angry with himself and his serious miscalculation.

“Whatever you need to believe,” she dismissed him, turning her back on both men and heading to the edge of the roof. “Thanks for the hospitality, Jimbo,” she said over her shoulder. “Enjoy your boys' club.”

Batman moved to stop her, grabbing for her arm. Selina jerked out of his hold, snarling at him. “Don’t touch me!” And with that she was gone, sailing across the city using her whip and innate grace, not relying on the jumplines he needed to move half as fluidly. He could catch her if he tried but the look in her eyes had defeated him.

“Why did she take off the mask?” Gordon asked softly.

“She was giving you power over her.”

“She must have known that I’ll go after her the next time she steps over the line, her relationship with you notwithstanding.” Gordon shook his head. “I thought she hated prisons.”

“She does.” Batman replied, sadly.

**************************

Two days later, Selina dragged her weary, battered body up from the cave into the Manor, sagging against the grandfather clock in the study. She leaned heavily against the clock, listening as the locking mechanisms tumbled into place, her eyes burning with exhaustion. Two days spent working through a backlog of East End cases, doing the legwork, not sleeping, not eating. Slam had asked her a half-dozen times to catch a nap on the futon in his office and she’d finally threatened to leave Gotham altogether if he didn’t stop asking.

She made her way up the staircase and paused at the doorway to Bruce’s room, listening for movement. He was probably still out on patrol. It was just after 5am and she knew that the past two nights had been busy enough in the rest of the city to keep him out of the East End. Tonight had probably been no exception.

Marcelo, the little gray cat, greeted her at the bathroom door with a questioning “meow?”, rubbing against her leg. The calico, Smitty, charged past her and launched itself into the empty bathtub. Selina obligingly turned on the water and Smitty watched the water drip intently, pawing at the slow drizzle when it threatened to get out of hand.

“I take it you guys were bored?” she asked, peeling the mud-soaked, tattered costume off her body. “Another one bites the dust,” she muttered, leaving the Catsuit rolled up in a ball on the rose-colored floor. She turned on the shower and Smitty leapt out of the tub with an indignant yowl. Selina ignored the cat, focusing on the way the warm water worked to relax her sore, stiff muscles and trying not the think of that first night in the shower with Bruce.

She should have known that things between them would end badly. All those brave words to Slam and Dick about knowing it went as far as sex and no further were just wishful thinking. Relationships were never that simple, and now…now she cared. And he didn’t, at least not enough to admit it. Why should he? Selina thought bitterly, attacking her foot with a lufah. The people he loved and respected were all telling him the same thing: she was a thief, she couldn’t be trusted and it was only a matter of time before she betrayed him and his little Bat clique to the wrong side for profit or spite.

The lufah slipped out of her hands and floated towards the drain. She sat down at the end of the tub, letting the shower of hot water spray over her as she drew her knees up to her chest. She’d tried so hard for the last three years to redeem herself. Not for him, or officials like Gordon, or do-gooders like Dick, but for herself. She had needed to prove that, despite her history, Selina Kyle was still worth something.

Apparently, at least according to Gotham’s resident saints and heroes, she would never be worth anything at all. Gordon was right. She’d blown every chance she’d ever had to play for the winning team. Bruce, at least, seemed willing to consider the notion that she was capable of change, but the others…

She’d been in the shower too long. The hot water was lukewarm and the puddle around her was pink with blood.

Right. The guy with the literal left hook on the shipping docks near Sheridan Park. She’d been sloppy and gotten hurt again. Selina touched her side gingerly, fingering the small gash along her ribcage. Luckily, just a flesh wound. She cut the water and stepped out of the bathtub, finding a set of clean towels and her white terrycloth robe neatly folded over the stool next to the vanity counter. Alfred.

Still tying the robe closed, she entered the master bedroom and came to a dead stop. Bruce stood before her, looking angry, his jaw clenched tightly, his arms folded across his bare chest. There was something off about his stance, some kind of wound to his kidney, she guessed, resisting the urge to ask.

Selina ignored him, padding across the room to retrieve the first-aid kit they kept in the bedside table. She selected a length of gauze, perched delicately on the edge of the bed and shrugged the robe off her shoulders. She didn’t turn her head to see if he was watching. She could feel his eyes on her.

“Where were you?” he growled. “I had Tim and Cassandra patrol for two days looking for you. Barbara tapped Bradley’s phones and Dick tailed Holly. Were you in the East End?”

Selina shrugged, focused on keeping pressure on the dressing as she unwound the bandage. It was hard to do it one-handed but she wasn’t about to ask him for help.

“Well?” Bruce asked impatiently, crossing around the food of the bed to stand squarely before her.

“Worried I’d forget what day it is?” she asked him, looking up.

Something unreadable flickered in his eyes and Bruce managed to force it out before she could be sure it was there. So he’d worried about her. That failed to impress her. So had her cats.

“You could have been injured or-”

“I am injured,” she reminded him, nodding at the bandages encircling her torso beneath her breasts. He knelt before her, took the roll of gauze and began to redo the dressing. She hadn’t kept it tight enough.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” he told her softly, his head lowered to focus on what he was doing. “I didn’t handle the meeting between you and Gordon very well.”

“You didn’t ‘handle’ it at all,” she informed him, watching the top of his dark head.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Selina touched his hand and he looked up.

“Do you agree with him? Or Barbara or Alfred or Dick? Or Tim and Cassie, if anyone bothered to ask them?” At the question in his eyes, she continued quietly. “Do you think I’ll betray you?”

Bruce stood, bending as he began to wind the gauze around her back. “I trust you, Selina.”

“Why?” she asked him point-blank, whispering against his ear.

“I have faith in you,” he said simply, worried that he’d hesitated too long. Selina held his eyes locked with hers, unblinking, reading him carefully. He concealed nothing, keeping his face open and honest.

Selina broke eye contact first, her hands falling to her lap. “I want a hard man, Bruce, not a cold one. And you were cold on that roof. Tell me why I should forgive you for not defending me against Gordon.”

“Because he was right,” Bruce replied softly. “And so are the rest of them. You’ve made choices in your life that make it impossible for them to trust you.”

“Then why do you-”

“I need to believe you can come back from the edge,” he said, kneeling again before her. His face was tense, fierce with conviction. “You are my only success in this city, Selina.”

Her eyes widened. Both Batman and Bruce Wayne knelt before her, a man who was confusing love with duty. And she knew he loved her in that moment, because he said it in the only way he could. Success. It was an unfamiliar word to Batman, who had watched Gotham decay and be overrun with crime. That’s what she gave him that the other women couldn’t: Catwoman’s reform was a light at the end of a very long tunnel, one from which he’d never expected to emerge.

She wanted to be angry with him, angry that he’d reduced her to a checklist he had somewhere in the Batcave. Catwoman? Check. The Riddler? Check. Two-Face? Double check. But that wasn’t what he was saying, not really. She gave the darker part of his life meaning and hope. Selina sighed, touching his cheek. It hadn’t been what she’d wanted from him, but now she knew it was impossible for Bruce Wayne to say he loved her. She was here for Batman, not for him.

*****************************

Barbara watched as Dick pulled tight-weave Kevlar up over his waist, the full-body costume molding perfectly to his thighs and clinging tightly to his hips. He remained bare-chested, inserting an extra layer of body armor between his torso and the suit, his face schooled into benign concentration. Barbara wheeled closer to him, handing him his gloves as he closed the suit over his upper body. Dick slipped the gloves on and checked through each compartment secreted inside the fingertips and around his wrists. Two escrima sticks were hidden in his leggings, sewn into compartments with enough skill so as not to disturb the line of his costume.

“He wants us in place by 10:30?” Barbara asked, and Dick nodded. He pasted some spirit gum to the back of his mask and stood before the mirror to fix it in place around his eyes.

“Nervous?” Dick grinned, challenging her like Robin used to challenge Batgirl on the city’s rooftops so long ago.

“I’m scared to death, Dick,” Barbara replied. “All that extra body armor…”

“I won’t need it,” Dick promised, turning to squat before her chair. He smiled at her, his mouth warm and reassuring beneath the dark mask and white slits concealing his eyes. Dick kissed her, squeezing her shoulder. “Besides, you’ll be right there, in the van. Anything goes wrong, you’re in place to do something about it.”

“Are you…are you worried?” she asked, hating the catch in her voice. He was so strong and beautiful and he was Dick. She loved him. If anything ever happened to him-

“Nope,” he said breezily, dropping a kiss on her forehead as he stood. “I’ve got the best team in the world backing me up. Bruce at my side, Tim and Cass on the rooftops, you in the Mystery Machine-”

“Catwoman will be there too,” she reminded him and Dick turned, his eyes narrowing. They faced each other for a moment and Dick sighed, leaning against her dresser.

“I thought, that night at dinner-”

Barbara shook her head. “I was being polite for Bruce’s sake, and for you and your misplaced sense of guilt. I’m surprised you were so easily manipulated by her.”

“You think she played me?”

“Like a piano,” Barbara replied. “That’s what she does. What she’s always done. Just because she switched teams…she’s a predator, Dick, pretending to be a house pet.”

Dick folded his arms. “I like her, Babs. I can’t help it. So does Bruce. And you can’t tell me you don’t feel sorry for her, at least a little. The kind of childhood she had, what she did to survive-”

“Dick, that doesn’t matter,” Barbara denied. “All that matters is that as an adult woman capable of making her own decisions, she turned to crime. No one held a gun to her head and told her to become Catwoman. She made her choice.”

He closed his eyes, feeling like they’d been having this argument for months. Barbara could be as unforgiving as Bruce sometimes.

“Look, I know how you feel about her. So does Bruce. And she’s still around. I just think it’ll be easier on everyone if you’d-”

“What? Pretend to accept her?” Barbara asked him. “She’s never going to be a part of this family, Dick.”

Selina’s words from that evening, echoed in Barbara’s low, sweet voice. Dick shook his head, checking the bedside clock anxiously. 10:15. They were pushing it.

“I thought the same thing about you,” he confessed softly. He looked up to see Barbara’s frank, questioning gaze. “Remember when you started hanging around in that homemade Batgirl suit? Bruce tried to ignore you, I teased you endlessly, and we both hoped you’d give up before you got yourself hurt. I felt a little threatened, I guess. We were partners, Bruce and I, and a girl didn’t fit in. But after a while, you really proved yourself. You stuck to your guns and worked hard and, eventually, even Bruce realized that you were an essential part of the team. We needed you.”

Barbara smiled sadly, remembering how good it had felt when she had finally been accepted by Batman and Robin. Those had been happy years, before the Joker’s bullet had severed her spine and before Jason Todd had died. She knew it would never be that way again, for Bruce or any successive Boy Wonders or Batgirls. Unconditional acceptance was no longer possible in their strange little family. They had lost too much to take such risks again.

“I hope you aren’t comparing me with her,” Barbara cautioned him. Dick shook his head.

“I just wanted to remind you how hard it is to be with Bruce. Add to that a bunch of resentful, suspicious stepkids, and Selina’s got a lot working against her. If she sticks it out, it’s because she really loves him. I don’t think we’d be worth putting up with if she didn’t.”

“Maybe I’ll invite them over for dinner again sometime,” Barbara decided, at least for Dick’s sake. He was probably the most fair-minded among them and Dick’s vocal support for Selina was enough to make her feel a little guilty at what she’d thought of the other woman for the last six months.

“Let’s roll, babe,” Dick suggested, pausing long enough for Barbara to grab her keys and wheel out into the hallway, into the elevator. “Gonna be a long night.”

*****************


	5. The Court of Miracles

Dick slipped into the vacant lot cautiously, his feet moving soundlessly over the packed dirt. He scanned the shadows lining the south wall, penetrating the darkness with his starlight lenses. Satisfied, he turned and glanced up at the rooftop where he knew Tim was watching across the street. Cassie was to his left on a staircase leading down into an abandoned tenement. He didn’t look in her direction.

Crossing the lot and disappearing into the shadows, Dick kept the wall on his left until he felt the others in front of him, waiting in the dark.

“You’re late,” Batman’s deep voice admonished him.

“By 15 seconds - Barbara insisted on driving,” Dick hissed. “Selina?”

“Present,” she said primly, and Dick grinned.

“Any sign of them?”

“Nothing,” Batman replied. “Keep quiet.”

Dick clamped his mouth shut, leaning against the wall. The sounds of night in Tricorner were picked up by the mike in his earpiece and amplified: a car backfiring, loud music blaring from a nearby window, a group of kids passing on the other side of the block, talking excitedly to each other about something unimportant. Dick liked TriCorner. Jim Gordon’s house was here and he and Barbara went to her father’s every Sunday for dinner. The best Jim could manage most of the time was Chinese or pizza, but Dick forgave him easily.

He felt the hours tick by and slowly slid to a crouching position, straightening and stretching when his legs started to stiffen up. Beside him in the dark he sometimes heard Selina doing the same. Bruce didn’t move a muscle the entire time. All three were patient as they waited for midnight but Dick could feel some tension in the air between Selina and Bruce. He was glad he’d remembered to kiss Barbara before piling out of the van.

Finally a car approached on the long stretch of street running in front of the lot. He felt Bruce tense up beside him. Selina seemed to relax even more. Dick simply stood, watching and waiting, his hand pressed tightly to a button concealed in his wrist. The timing had to be perfect.

A long, dark, late-model Ford pulled into the lot, its wheels stirring up clouds of dust. Dick hit the switch just as the Ford’s lights reached them and floodlights popped behind Batman, Catwoman and Nightwing. The driver and passengers of the Ford would be blinded, the floodlights protecting the masked heroes.

The car’s backseat doors opened and three girls got out. They were the same girls from Christmas, the Mexican taking point again. Her hands were empty and it looked to Dick like they were all unarmed. He knew Bruce wouldn’t have assumed the same. The girls stepped forward to speak, blinking in the bright light pouring into the lot.

“You are well prepared,” the Mexican girl complimented, eyeing the three costumed figures. “And all accounted for. Please, come with us.”

Batman shook his head, having expected this. “No,” he said simply.

The girl shrugged. “You will come with us. You want to meet the one who has shown us the way. Get into the car.”

“We were told the Other would meet us here,” Nightwing put in. The girl didn’t seem willing to negotiate with Dick. She dismissed him and continued to address Batman.

“And we were told to bring you. Come now, or miss your chance.”

Batman pretended to think it over, feeling Dick’s concerned expression. Selina seemed bored by everything. They had placed tracers in all three of their costumes to be tracked by Barbara in the van and Tim had attached a tracking device to their car the instant the Ford pulled into the lot. There seemed to be little physical risk in going with the girls, but Batman hesitated.

“I want your assurance we will not be harmed,” he appealed to the Mexican girl. Honor was important to her; she had a military bearing and her high Chiappas accent indicated she had been fighting in a rebellion in central Mexico before coming to Gotham. His hunch paid off. The girl nodded.

“You will not be touched,” she told them. “Now, please, come.”

Batman signaled to Tim and Cassie. Barbara would know to follow the Ford. Nightwing got into the car’s backseat first, followed by Catwoman. Batman sat stiffly on the seat, watchful. The girls got into the front, cramming themselves in next to the driver. The driver was a young boy, maybe fourteen, but he piloted the big car with skill and confidence. The car’s windows were blacked out and a screen slid up from the center of the car, partitioning the backseat from the front.

“Guess they don’t want us to know where we’re going,” Selina muttered. “It’s a bit low-rent, don’t you think? I mean, they could have afforded some chloroform…”

“It’s effective,” Batman replied tensely. They settled into silence in the backseat of the Ford, listening to the sounds of the city as the car slipped through the streets. Bruce knew roughly the route they were taking: east over the TriCorner bridge, up Union Street and onto Central. The ride took less than forty-five minutes and Bruce was able to count the stoplights and right-hand-turns with ease. They were headed for Cathedral Square.

The Square was so named because four of Gotham’s seven major Gothic Cathedrals had been constructed within a four-block radius. Early Gothamites (Bruce’s ancestors among them) had been extremely pious. Devotion to their faith and nearly unlimited financial resources in the booming economy of 1860s Gotham had resulted in the soaring spires and gargoyle-encrusted edifices of the seven churches. Rivaling anything produced in the same period in Europe, the cathedrals were beautifully crafted, cavernous symbols of American wealth married to high-Anglican love of architecture and symbolism. After the 'Quake, two of the churches had collapsed into a fault line running beneath the city. Mayor Kroll had appealed to the Wayne Foundation in a request to fund the restoration of the cathedrals. Bruce had refused, choosing instead to open two free clinics and a low-rent housing complex on the same ground once occupied by Our Lady of Sorrow and St. Thomas’s. Bruce did not share his ancestor’s faith in faith.

The young boy driving the Ford pulled to a stop then swung the car around in a three-point turn, executing the move swiftly and with assurance. He backed the car up, then came to a stop. Nightwing, Catwoman and Batman sat silently for a moment, waiting for their doors to open.

“What now?” Dick asked. Selina shrugged, looking to Bruce. Batman didn’t reply.

The Ford shook, rattling slightly, and Bruce realized they were on some sort of platform. Selina flinched, tensing beside him. He’d noticed her anxiety level rising exponentially since being shut into the cramped, windowless quarters of the Ford’s backseat. Was she claustrophobic? he wondered, rejecting the idea. Her occupation as a thief had required her to crawl through miles of air ducts and close herself in tiny rooms, working frantically as she picked a lock or broke into a vault. Nonetheless, Catwoman did not like small spaces.

They felt themselves lowering on some kind of elevator and above them, the sounds of the city faded. Bruce timed their descent, calculating the rate at which the Ford was being lowered. They were at least a mile underground before the lift lurched to a halt. A few seconds of silence, and then the front doors of the car opened. Footsteps, then the Mexican girl appeared at the back door, holding it open for them. Batman stepped out, mindful of his cape. Selina bounded out next, stepping lightly out of the car and blinking in the darkness. Nightwing was last and Dick let out a long, low whistle. They looked at the elevator shaft above them, soaring into the sky. The shaft had been cut deep into the earth and even with the binocular setting in his cowl activated, Batman could just barely make out the pulley system operating miles above their heads. The shaft was faintly illuminated with red becons every thirty feet or so. The platform on which the Ford had been sitting was simply a slab of concrete anchored by cables. Selina shivered. She would avoid, at all costs, another ride on the fragile-looking platform.

Batman turned to survey their surroundings. Walls of shale and limestone had been shaped by the 'Quake into caverns. The elevator shaft was man-made, Bruce was certain, but the caverns were recent natural developments. A major opening to their left yawned dark and forbidding. Batman caught the scent of decay rising from the cavern. The Mexican girl led them forward in a different direction, up a slight incline into another tunnel lighted with more red beacons. The two other girls and the boy took the rear, Batman, Nightwing and Catwoman securely in the middle. The passage was dark, defying even their starlight lenses which couldn’t compensate with the red glare of the beacons. Some sort of filter, Batman realized. Their nightvision was supposed to be useless.

They walked for a long time in the dim red light, feet scraping against raw earth. Their footsteps echoed off the cavern walls and sometimes a faint sound of other voices would reach them. The twisting tunnel rounded a sharp curve and finally they stepped into a room filled with light.

The cavern was enormous, the rock ceiling some 180ft above them. Stale, recycled air filled the cave and bright lights blazed from fixtures set deep in the walls. All around them, people milled. Adolescents mostly, perhaps a hundred of them, all moving with purpose. They barely spared their strange costumed visitors a second glance. Most of them were dressed in rags and all wore a thick coating of grime due to their residence underground. But they did not look unhappy. Batman noted they looked well-fed, and most of the girls laughed and joked with each other in small groups. A group of boys were playing an improvised game of soccer near the cavern entrance. He estimated their ages ranged from five or six to twenty. He glimpsed a few of the older girls holding small children.

The Mexican girl led them on through the crowd. Shelters began to take shape, forcing them into a narrow aisle running between cardboard and plastic huts. The shelters resembled those favored by the homeless living beneath the RKM Bridge or out on the wide plains near the airport, sheets of plastic and metal covering walls of flimsy boxes and propped up with whatever was available. This was a permanent squatters camp, miles below the surface with no discernable source of water or sanitation facilities. He hadn’t even known it existed. The amount of shelters indicated there were at least three hundred people living down here, filling the entire cavern with a warren of improvised homes.

The girl drew them on and Batman realized that their other escorts had fallen away. Selina and Dick were scanning the cavern in seeming amazement, taking in all the children and their living conditions. Bruce had been to third-world countries where squatterstowns like these were commonplace, an entire civilization living out of what amounted to little more than a waste dump. It was a strange sight in America but would have looked at home in Brazil or Mexico City. He told himself he had seen worse.

Finally they came to the end of the pathway between the blocks of shelters. Catacombs were set into the rock wall at the north end of the cave, their entrances covered by old blankets and sheets. The Mexican girl held up her hand, a clear message to wait. She disappeared behind a curtain and Bruce strained to hear what it was she was saying.

A moment later she emerged. “You will come with me,” she said simply, taking a weaving path along the rock wall.

“Not that we have much of a choice,” Selina muttered, hating the way the air smelled. She cast her eyes behind them as the Mexican girl led them down the path, catching sight of a small group of children watching them go. The kids regarded them seriously and one little girl, standing a bit apart from the others, raised her hand to wave at Selina. Before Selina could respond, they disappeared behind a bend in the rock wall.

The Mexican girl led them into another cavern, this one much smaller. It was a cistern, a source of water deep underground. Light reflected from a torch on the wall danced off the water, casting the cave in a shimmering blue glow. “Wait here,” the Mexican girl ordered, heading out of the cave. Nightwing whispered something to Batman, who shook his head. Catwoman folded her arms, looking into the cistern. The water was clear, deep and cold, extending miles into the earth.

The Mexican girl reappeared, followed by another girl. Jessica Bradshaw.

She was older, obviously, and her face had lost its girlish softness. The frizzy red hair was gone, replaced by a thick braid hanging over her shoulder. Jessica nodded at them and when she spoke, Batman noted her braces were gone as well. She still resembled the shy, unassuming girl in her Missing Persons file, but Jessica was a woman now. A dangerous one.

“Impressed?” she asked them all. Catwoman, Nightwing and Batman regarded her with blank stares. She smiled, as if at some private joke. “Neither am I. We’ve been working for months to prepare for your visit, but you’re not the sort of people who are easily impressed. I told them it was useless…”

The Mexican girl shrugged, her face still cold and closed. “It was worth the effort,” she said slowly, her accent running soft through her tone. “It made the children happy. They needed it.”

“What is this all about, Jessica?” Batman asked sharply. Jessica looked at him, then turned to dismiss the Mexican girl.

“It’s alright, Maria. He won’t hurt me.”

“You’re sure?” Maria asked, her posture indicating her disbelief.

“I’m positive,” Jessica replied, eyeing Batman. “We’re on the same side.”

Maria nodded reluctantly, then exited the cave. Jessica squared her stance, her hands clasped in front of her. “I’m not Jessica Bradshaw anymore,” she informed them. “They call me Miss Misery now.”

Batman didn’t react. It wasn’t important what she called herself, only what her intentions were. “What are you doing, Jessica?” he asked her softly. She crossed the cave, coming to stand before Selina.

“To think we were so worried about you. Such a little thing,” Jessica said, her eyes sweeping over Catwoman from head to toe. Selina folded her arms. Jessica whirled, eyes focusing on Nightwing for only a moment before returning her attention to Batman.

“I want to negotiate for the release of my people,” she said, surprising him. Batman stepped backward as she came forward, not wanting her to touch him. “Your Wayne Foundation can help them, do for them what I cannot.”

“That’s what this meeting was about?” Batman repeated. “You want to help those children?”

“I’m not a monster,” Jessica said defensively. “And I know you’re afraid of me. But their part in this will be over soon and I don’t want them hurt.”

“What does that mean?” Nightwing asked.

Jessica sighed. “Come with me.”

They followed her out of the cave up a steep incline. Jessica was quiet as they walked and Batman felt some of his fear dissipating. She wasn’t Ted Kolby. The future hadn’t driven her mad, at least not in an obvious way. He’d dealt with enough insane criminals to know that she should be ranting by now about her evil plans for world domination. Jessica Bradshaw was what she had always been: just a scared kid from Bristol.

They came to a stop on a ledge and they turned, the entire cavern spread out before them. From this height the shelters looked small, orderly, the bodies weaving in and out between them with the nervous energy of youth. “We call it the Court of Miracles,” Jessica told them, spreading her hands wide.

Batman nodded. From _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_. A scrap of the novel came to him then, as he watched the children below. He stepped back from the edge, staring at Jessica. “Where beggars walk and blind men see.”

Jessica nodded. “Remember what the poet said when the gypsy king first showed him the Court of Miracles?”

“"If I exist, does this exist? If this exists, do I exist?"“ Batman recited.

“Hugo loved existential crisis,” Jessica shrugged. “The point is, whatever they were on the surface, they’re different down here. Reborn.” She pointed to the children running through the city below.

“Why are they all here?” Nightwing asked, crouched on the lip of the ledge.

Jessica kept her eye on the children, sighing regretfully. “Revenge.”

“On who?” Selina asked without looking up. Jessica glanced at her, then back at Batman.

“He knows,” she said simply. “Let him explain it to you.”

Dick and Selina looked at Bruce questioningly and he frowned. “They were abused? As you were?”

Jessica nodded slowly, pain or perhaps disgust flaring momentarily in her eyes. “Not all of them were molested. But yes: every one of those children was abused, neglected, unwanted by their natural parents. Some of them fled from state care. Others were abandoned. They flow into Gotham like a tidal wave. Wait long enough at the Port Authority bus station, you'll see them come.”

Batman grunted slightly in agreement. He’d done more than enough surveillance at Port Authority. How often had he seen a young girl, alone in the world, step off the bus and be approached by a man who promised her he’d help her become a star, if only she would pose for a few pictures. Others would offer her a room for the night, food, some getting-started money, only there was this favor they needed her to do…

Vultures. And among them, Jessica Bradshaw must have been waiting, collecting the children for her own reasons.

“And your revenge…” Selina prompted. Jessica looked again at Batman.

“Why do men kill women, Bruce?” she asked him. He didn’t react at her use of his given name when he was wearing the mask. There was now no longer any question that she knew everything about them. He didn’t speak and Jessica frowned in displeasure.

She addressed Catwoman. “Why do men kill women?”

“Greed,” Selina supplied. “Or jealousy. For money, for sex. Sometimes just because they can.”

Jessica nodded. “And why do women kill men?”

Batman hoped that Selina would reply. She was watching him intently, unwilling or unable to answer. He replied softly. “Revenge.”

“Not that we’re making grand generalizations,” Nightwing put in, standing. “You know that there are a thousand different reasons why people hurt each other. I hope you’re not saying one reason is more justified than another.”

Jessica shook her head, angry. “Tell me that after your father has-”

“That’s why those kids are here?” Selina cut her off, not wanting to listen to any of Miss Misery’s rationalizations. “Part of your revenge against your father?”

“I would have thought you’d approve of his death,” Jessica said, turning to Selina. “I know what he did to you.”

“Yeah. Thanks for that Kodak memory,” Selina muttered. “I put that behind me years ago. Then that picture turns up and-”

“What are you doing with the kids?” Batman interrupted. “Have you been using them to-”

Jessica shook her head. “When you get back to the surface, your Martian friend will hand you a list of names I’ve given to him, a list of dead men and women. Some of them died of natural causes. Heart attacks, illnesses, that sort of thing. Others were victims of accidents. Car crashes, suicides…there are a thousand different ways for people to die without another person being responsible. Investigate the names on that list. Most of them are the reason these children came to the Court of Miracles,” Jessica told them, sweeping her hands out towards the shelters. “Pimps, drug dealers… Parents.”

Selina shook her head sadly, thinking of something Holly had said to her once. Every girl on the street had a name for her first pimp: she called him ‘Daddy’.

Bruce kept his face impassive. Jessica Bradshaw had admitted to murder. He had to take her down.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Jessica said bluntly. “You think I belong in a prison.”

“Or Arkham,” Bruce told her through clenched teeth.

“Maybe so,” Jessica shrugged. “Tell me that those people, the ones who died, deserved to live while these kids are down here. I pulled them out of massage parlors and halfway houses and state orphanages from all over the country. Not all of them came to me on the bus. Consider what those people did to these children! Now tell me they deserved to live.”

Nightwing looked again at the children down in the cavern, then shook his head. “We can’t make those kind of decisions. It isn’t up to us to decide who gets to live and who dies.”

It was an old mantra among the Bat family: Bruce had first explained it to Dick when he was eleven. None of them would ever take a life, not even the Joker’s. Their dedication to preserving life, any life, was the cost of their mission. And Jessica knew she would never be able to offer up an argument to shake their belief in in the sanctity of human life.

“And what about the children they haven’t touched yet?” she asked softly. Bruce and Dick stared at her. Selina found herself nodding slowly.

“You think they stop with one child? You think abuse ends in a generation? Or that a child molester’s appetites are ever sated? These people pass their sicknesses on to others like a disease.” Jessica closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “Do you know that Philip Larkin poem?”

Selina and Dick shook their heads. Jessica narrowed her eyes, looking at Bruce. She recited, in a calm, clear voice:

_“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.  
They may not mean to, but they do  
They fill you with the faults they had  
And add some extra, just for you._

_But they were fucked up in their turn  
By fools in old-style hats and coats,  
Who half the time were soppy-stern  
And half at one another's throats._

_Man hands on misery to man.  
It deepens like a coastal shelf.  
Get out as early as you can,  
And don't have any kids yourself.”_

“You believe that?” Dick asked, incredulous.

“I’ve lived it,” Jessica snapped at him. “So has she,” she said, pointing to Selina. “So have you.”

Dick flinched, then glanced at Bruce. “He didn’t-”

“How often did he tell you he loved you?” Jessica asked. “Or that he thought of you as a son? What has he told you about why you came to live with him in the first place? You had to find out from a servant why you’re even a part of his life!”

Dick stepped back a little. Maybe she was a telepath. “He’s a good person,” Dick sighed, tired of this old argument. “He did the best he could. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken me in, but-”

“And Jason Todd?” Jessica asked, glaring at Bruce. “Or Barbara Gordon? He’s hurt them all. Tell me that you and the others didn’t inherit his misery. Jason would still be alive if he hadn’t-”

“You’re right,” Bruce said, cutting her off, the pain of her words slicing through him like a slow, dull blade. Dick’s eyes widened.

“Bruce, don’t think like that!” he exclaimed, not sure how convincing he sounded. Barbara had made the same argument to him just a few nights ago. They fought a lot about Jason, and about Bruce. He continued, moved by the love he felt for the man he thought of as his father. “He was a good dad,” Dick said softly. “To all of us. We turned out okay.”

“Sure,” Jessica replied, rolling her eyes. “Barbara is in a wheelchair. Jason is in the ground. And you and Tim are so desperate for his love and approval that you’d do anything for him even though you know he’d never acknowledge your efforts.”

“I’m not going to argue about this,” Dick said flatly. “You possess some great physic power? Then you know I love him.” He looked up at Bruce who regarded him carefully through the opaque eyes of Batman’s mask. “And you know that, whatever mistakes he’s made, he did the best he could. He never hurt us intentionally. What happened to Jason and Barbara wasn’t his fault. He has nothing in common with the people you say hurt those kids down there.”

“Has the boy managed to convince you?” Jessica asked, her head lolling towards Bruce. He didn’t answer.

“What about you?” she asked Selina when she saw Bruce’s response wouldn’t be forthcoming.

“I…I don’t know,” Selina said, her voice thick and strange. She was still watching the children below in their city of plastic and cardboard, thinking that a place like this would have been her salvation when she was younger. It would have meant a home. And a chance for revenge.

Jessica returned her attention to Batman. “I’ve seen the end, you know. And it wasn’t what Ted Kolby said it would be. What did he tell you? ‘In the end, there’s only me’? Phuh,” Jessica snorted. “I’ve seen my death. And yours. Want to know how it ends?”

Dick eyed Bruce anxiously. He was behaving strangely since they’d come up here to look at the Court of Miracles. Quiet, thoughtful, lacking the anger and clear moral imperative of the Bat. He should have arrested Jessica by now and set plans in motion to care for the children below. Dick began to wonder if Bruce was buying Jessica’s argument.

“We’re not interested,” Dick told her. “I got him a mortality clock for Christmas. He knows he’s gonna live to be a hundred.”

“He dies alone, a broken old man in an empty house,” Jessica said. “I hardly need special powers to see that for him.”

“You’re way off, lady,” Dick said quickly. “Bruce-”

“He hurts people,” she said, speaking as if the rest of them weren’t there. “He pushes them away. People who do that end up alone. There will be a day when everything else falls away and the world dies. I’ve seen that too. But I know Bruce Wayne dies alone with his obsession. You might die an old man, safe in bed surrounded by family and friends,” she said to Dick, “but that fate is not his. I’ve seen him die a thousand different ways, but I know the death he will finally choose for himself.”

“What is it?” Bruce asked hoarsely. Dick wanted to slap him, but the look in Selina’s eyes stilled his hand.

Jessica closed her eyes and she seemed suddenly very far away. After a moment, she looked at Bruce. “You want to be in Crime Alley when it happens. In the place of your nightmares.”

Bruce nodded. Jessica continued.

“It won’t end that way for you. There will be a long illness, and pain. Everything will be lost. No easy death for you, surrounded by the relics of your great mission. Only regret.”

Bruce closed his eyes. He wanted to cry out, to scream out over the Court of Miracles. Instead he forced his voice into a soft whisper, knowing anything more would be his ruin.

“Is this my life?” he asked her softly.

Jessica shrugged, the braid of hair flopping over her shoulder. “You chose your path. Be grateful for that, at least. None of these children were given that chance.”

Bruce felt Selina’s touch on his hand. She had removed her mask and now locked her eyes to his, holding his large hand in her own small, delicate one. “And my death?” she asked Jessica. “If you’re telling fortunes, may as well do mine.”

“I can’t see your destiny,” Jessica admitted, knowing it didn’t matter. It was too late for them to do anything with that particular information.

“That was why you sent Huntress and George Flannery after me?” Selina guessed. Jessica nodded. Selina turned to her and launched a perfect right hook. With lightening speed, Jessica blocked the blow. She had known that was coming, at least.

Selina shook her hand, fists curled in rage. “You fucking coward!” she screamed at the younger woman. “You tried to destroy my life! Why? Because I was some rouge piece on your big chessboard? I was never a threat to you!”

“Uncertainty is the biggest threat there is,” Jessica replied evenly. “Ask the Batman.”

Selina turned, done with the whole crazy situation. She stalked down the winding path leading up to the ledge, furious. She paused at the mouth of the little cistern cave, breathing heavily. Miss Misery’s words had frightened Bruce, she could see. And Dick. Maybe it was because they’d hit so close to the truth. Selina thought of the way Batman had seemed to her at first, some boy scout out to save the world. The first truly decent man she had ever met.

That had changed when he’d taken on the kid. Robin was an unsettling addition to their nightly skirmishes, simply because she hadn’t know what to think of Batman’s new brightly-colored sidekick. Rumor around the underworld had it that Robin was Batman’s son and when Batgirl had appeared, Selina’s fellow criminals had surmised that the stork had deposited another Bat on the doorstep of Gotham City. To think, all that time, he’d been adopting kids, training them, deliberately turning them into costumed vigilantes…

Making them part of her dark world.

Selina sank down by the pool and sobbed, great, heart-wrenching cries wracking her shoulders. She felt as though the tears would never stop.

****************

The small group on the ledge stood silently after Selina’s departure. Batman turned to Jessica. “Why did you want me to see this?”

“I wanted Bruce Wayne to see this, not Batman.”

“Why?” he demanded.

She smiled. “Because for what these children are facing, they need a social worker, not a vigilante. Get the kids out of here,” she begged. “I needed them close to find the people who were responsible for their presence on the streets. I returned some of them to their parents. Others I placed in state care because I knew they would be adopted. But these…” she cast her eyes downward. “They’re building prisons for them now. Orphanages and graveyards. There’s nothing we can do to stop that from happening.”

“I don’t believe in damaged goods,” Batman growled.

Jessica nodded. “Of course you don’t. You wouldn’t be a hero if you did. But the one contribution these kids have made to society was to give me the knowledge I needed to make sure what happened to them would never happen to anyone else. Do what you can for them. Try your best.”

“What happens to you?” Dick asked. Jessica shook her head.

“Time for that later. I think we should get some rest. The children will be moved out and then Wayne Construction can fill this entire cavern with concrete.”

The Mexican girl reappeared at Jessica’s side. “Take them to get some sleep,” Jessica ordered. “Ring the bell for night.”

She nodded and Bruce and Dick followed her back down to the floor of the cavern.

 

*****************


	6. Lucy

Selina felt a soft touch brush her arm. She raised her head to see a small, dark-haired girl regarding her very seriously. The little girl kept her hand on Selina’s arm, staring at her.

“Hi,” Selina said, wiping streaks of tears off her face.

“Hi,” the girl replied softly. She was four or five years old, dark hair framing a small, thin little face. Her body was underdeveloped: Selina thought she looked malnourished. She was dressed in a ragged dress which clearly wasn’t warm enough and her skin was freezing to the touch. The little girl clutched a ragged stuffed animal tightly. Selina recognized her from the group of kids who’d watched as she, Bruce and Dick had been led up to the ledge.

“You waved at me,” Selina said softly. The girl nodded.

“My name’s Lucy.”

“Nice to meet you,” Selina said, offering her hand. The little girl examined it for a moment, then shook it. “I’m Selina.”

“I’m sorry you’re sad,” Lucy said. “Miss Misery makes a lot of people cry.”

“Does she make you cry?”

Lucy shook her head. Selina brushed her hand against Lucy’s cheek, examining the child’s face. “Are you cold?”

Lucy nodded, still regarding Selina with a very serious, world-weary expression. “Are you?”

“Not really,” Selina replied. Her leather costume was warmer in the insulated environs of the cave than it was on the rooftops of Gotham, but it still provided less than ideal protection from the damp. “Is there somewhere we can get you a blanket?”

The little girl shrugged. “I guess we could ask Maria. Come on,” Lucy said, slipping her hand easily into Selina’s. Selina stood, allowing the little girl to lead her out of the small cave into the wider cavern. Lucy walked with a slight limp, and Selina noted the way one of her feet turned in slightly. Bruce would know what was wrong with her, if he would break it up with Future Girl long enough to wonder what had happened to his supporting cast.

The return journey through the throng of children and young adults living in such close quarters was no less heartbreaking than the journey into the midst of the shelters. The kids still played together and talked amicably but the whole setup reminded Selina so strongly of the Glass Home for Children that she felt a little sick. She remembered the fear of night in the orphanage, how she had fought to protect herself and Maggie from the bigger, older kids. Lying awake and listening for the sound of footsteps coming over to their bunk. Or standing guard over Maggie as she ate, ready to fight for her sister’s right to a stale sandwich or a bruised apple.

She knew the same thing had to be happening amidst the shelters, whether or not Jessica’s powers picked it up. Somewhere, some little kid was going without food because a bigger kid had taken it. Or someone was loosing a place to sleep. She could almost hear the muffled sobs which had filled so many nights at the orphanage. And sense the same stalk of predators that had echoed among the bunks at Sprang Juvenile Hall.

Selina tightened her grip on Lucy’s hand, letting the little girl pull her through the maze of shelters until they reached their destination, which turned out to be a shelter comprised of a refrigerator box topped by a sheet of corrugated tin roofing. “Maria?” Lucy’s young voice piped up. “Can you give me a blanket?”

The Mexican girl emerged from her makeshift home, eyeing Selina dispassionately. She didn’t seem surprised to see one of the costumed visitors in the company of one of their own. “I don’t have one,” Maria told Lucy. Lucy took the news philosophically, turning to Selina.

“I’m really not that cold anyway,” she said. Selina frowned, looking to Maria.

“Where are my friends?”

Maria pointed to the catacombs lining the rock wall. “Take her,” she ordered Lucy, eying the girl with something close to hate.

“C’mon,” Lucy said, turning. They crossed the vast cavern and stopped before the rock wall. Selina eyed the catacombs helplessly. Short of yelling “Batman!” at the top of her lungs until Bruce emerged from one of the thousands of small caves, she had no idea how to locate him or Dick. Lucy noticed her uncertainty.

“This one,” the little girl said, pointing to the mouth of a cave to their left.

They entered the cave, walking a few feet to the back of the small fissure. Bruce sat on a pallet, a single candle burning beside him to illuminate the small space.

“We were invited to stay the night?” Selina asked. Bruce nodded, sparing only a brief glance for the small child at her side.

“We’ll start moving the children out in the morning,” he told her, his tone rough. She wondered if he’d been crying.

“This is Lucy,” Selina said, tugging the girl forward. The child stood before Batman, her curious gaze fixed on his masked face. She didn’t fidget or tremble with fright at the sight of Gotham’s Dark Knight, but Selina had decided that Lucy was probably the most controlled child she had ever encountered. Holly would have been terrified at her age to encounter Batman in a dark cave.

“Hi,” Lucy said, clutching her ragged stuffed animal. “You’re here to save us?”

Bruce nodded tiredly. Selina pulled off the rest of her mask, tossing it onto the bed beside Batman. She knelt before Lucy. “Where do you sleep?”

The little girl shrugged. “Wherever,” she said. “Sometimes with Maria, but she doesn’t like me much. She calls me a Sordida.”

Selina’s Spanish was a little rusty but she resisted the urge to race back to Maria’s hut and smack her for calling the little girl ‘dirty’. She glanced at Bruce, then turned back to the child.

“Do you want to sleep here tonight?”

Lucy nodded slowly, then asked, “do you think I’m a Sordida?”

“Nope,” Selina said immediately.

“Good,” Lucy smiled. “What’s a Sordida?”

*******************************

Bruce lay awake, his eyes on the candlelight flickering across the ceiling of the cave. Selina was curled next to him, Lucy sleeping in her arms. He was amazed by how quickly the little girl had latched onto her. Catwoman was hardly the maternal type. He wondered what would become of Lucy and the rest of the children of the Court of Miracles. Was Jessica right? Would they end up in prisons and orphanages, more victims of crime and neglect crowding the streets of Gotham? He would encounter them on patrol, he realized, these forgotten children who were locked on to a path of self-destruction laid out for them by their parents and an uncaring society. Child abuse had always been a hard issue for the Batman to grapple with. He believed that criminals were made, not born, but once they reached an age of maturity, they were responsible for their actions. He had no moral qualms about taking out a drug-dealer or a mugger, whatever their childhoods had been.

Bruce thought of Selina, sleeping so peacefully beside him. What role her childhood had played in the woman she had chosen to become. What his own had been. He found himself wondering what he would have been like if he had been born into a home of abuse and neglect. When he began to contemplate such things, his moral certainty wavered and that could not happen. He had to bring Miss Misery in. She had admitted to causing the deaths of scores of people and had forced these children to live miles beneath the earth in cramped, unsanitary conditions. She belonged in prison.

Selina sighed in her sleep, stirring slightly. Lucy rolled over, and the little girl slung an arm over Selina, brushing against Bruce. He closed his eyes.

He would fix this, for all of them.

*****************

“I contacted Barbara,” Nightwing was saying as they gathered around a fire the next morning. “She’s setting things in motion with GCFS. Family Services will be down here ASAP, which means at least a week or more.”

“A week,” Batman repeated, incredulous. It was obviously time for the Wayne Foundation to make another large donation to the civil service sector.

Dick shrugged. “It’s a lot kids, Bruce.” He paused, biting his lip in uncertainty. “Are you okay?” Dick asked softly. “What she said, about me and Tim and Barbara and Jason-”

“It’s hardly a new accusation,” Bruce admitted quietly. “I’m fine, Dick.”

Dick cast an anxious glance at his father. He knew exactly what it meant when Bruce said he was fine: the subject was closed, and no, he wasn’t.

Dick sighed. “How’s Selina?”

“Angry,” Bruce replied without hesitation. “But she’s found something to occupy her time.”

*****************


	7. Our Lady of Sorrows

Selina let Lucy lead her through the caves radiating out from the central cavern. They picked their way carefully among the outcroppings of rock and geological formations, working their way south underground.

“I hope you know where we’re going,” Selina said dryly. Lucy nodded. She came to a stop in another vast cavern, this time larger than even the one housing the Court of Miracles. Selina caught her breath in wonder and shock.

Our Lady of Sorrows, the Gothic Cathedral which had sat on the corner of Adams and 59th street for as long as Selina could remember, had crashed through the earth during the 'Quake and settled here. Somehow, most of the vast stone structure was intact. Even the stained-glass windows were still in place.

“This is amazing,” Selina said in a low tone of wonder. “I definitely think this should be the last stop on every tour.”

“You really like it?” Lucy asked, dragging her foot behind her. “This is Miss Misery’s private place. Want to see?”

“Are you sure it’s okay?” Selina asked, hesitantly. “Won’t you get into trouble?”

“She’s busy,” Lucy pointed out. “Helping your Bat friend plan to clear out the Court.”

“You’re pretty smart, you know,” Selina informed Lucy. The child nodded sagely.

“C’mon, come see,” Lucy begged. Selina finally agreed. They had to slosh through ankle-deep water to reach the entrance to the great cathedral, Lucy lagging behind. Selina finally picked her up. The small girl was weightless in her arms.

They entered the quiet hall of the old church, the ceiling so high above that it was lost in the gloom. Selina could smell the faint hint of the incense which had been burned in Our Lady of Sorrow for over a hundred and fifty years before the 'Quake had put her out of commission. “Do you know how it stayed together?” Selina asked Lucy. The small girl nodded.

“Maria told me. This is God’s special house. He wouldn’t let it crumble.”

“Hmm,” Selina muttered. She looked around, still amazed by the condition of the cathedral. Delicate arches carved from stone and marble sailed overhead, supporting a ceiling into which thousands of grinning gargoyles had been carved. She and Bruce had sparred on the rooftop of this church years ago, Selina remembered. She’d escaped him only by ducking behind a stone demon and climbing down the side of the main tower.

They came to a stop before a crumbling alter. A statue of Mary regarded them both, her face frozen in perpetual mourning. Her clothing and expression had been carved in such detail, Selina wouldn’t have been surprised if she were to step forward and offer a blessing.

“Why is she so sad?” Lucy asked, staring into the statue’s face. Selina shrugged, a few half-remembered catechisms returning to haunt her years after she’d taken her last communion. She had prayed with Maggie back in the orphanage. Maggie had insisted it made a difference. She always said that God works in mysterious ways. One day, an older boy had tried to hurt Maggie. Selina had nearly beaten him to death. They’d sent Selina to Sprang Hall and Maggie had gone to a foster home. Selina had never prayed again.

“I guess she’s lonely down here,” Selina sighed, the air stale and heavy in the massive church. Her reply echoed off the stone walls and ceiling, sending a few rocks raining down upon them. “Better go, kiddo,” she suggested. Lucy shook her head.

“Not yet. I wanted to show you Janie.”

“Janie?” Selina repeated, trailing after Lucy as the little girl hobbled through small piles of rubble. She came to a halt before an old confessional covered with a ratty, mold-covered curtain. Lucy swept the cloth barrier aside and entered the confessional, emerging a moment later with a tin box.

“She was my friend,” the little girl said softly, offering the box to Selina. Selina accepted the box gingerly, hoping there wasn’t a dead animal inside. Instead, there were pictures. Just a few, taken at a booth on Amusement Mile. Jessica and Janine Flannery, mugging for the automated camera. They wore too much makeup and skimpy clothing; Selina guessed they’d hit the fairgrounds hoping to make some quick cash off the crowds by mugging or hooking. She’d done the same thing at their age.

“Janie?” Selina asked Lucy, pointing to George Flannery’s daughter. She was grinning broadly, her arm wrapped tightly around Jessica Bradshaw. Jessica was wearing a necklace around her neck, some kind of crystalline flower. In the next series of pictures, also taken at the fair, Janine was wearing the necklace.

“That was Miss Misery’s special flower,” Lucy said helpfully, pointing to the necklace. “She gave it to Janie for safe-keeping. But then Janie tried to run away.”

“What do you mean?” Selina asked her. Lucy lowered her head, tears threatening.

“She wanted to tell Batman about what Miss Misery was doing. She was going to have a baby. We could be like sisters, Janie said. Like her and Miss Misery.”

“What happened to Janie?” Selina asked softly.

“Miss Misery made her sick. She made her stomach hurt. Janie got out anyway. I helped. I kept Miss Misery asleep while Janie went into the city. She never came back. I hoped Batman would come. Janie told me he was a good guy.”

Selina’s mind whirled with this new information. Jessica Bradshaw had murdered Janine Flannery? Why? What was she protecting? She remembered the case file Bruce had approached her with last November - the dead girl on the train. The picture.

She glanced again at the photos of Jessica and Janine. Why had Jessica murdered her friend? If Batman had known about the Court of Miracles and Jessica’s plans to murder the people who’d abused those children, could he have stopped it six months ago? Something about that didn’t feel right; there was another piece to the puzzle.

“You’ve known Miss Misery for a long time, Lucy,” Selina pointed out. The child nodded. “How did you meet her?”

Lucy shrugged, keeping her head down. Selina crouched before her, her hands on Lucy’s thin shoulders. She could feel the bones underneath the child’s fragile white skin. Lucy had been neglected in a way that none of the other children down here had been. And she behaved differently too; the other kids had avoided Batman, Catwoman and Nightwing. Only Lucy had been permitted to approach them.

“Is she your mother, Lucy?”

Lucy raised her head quickly. “No!” she denied. “I don’t have a mommy!”

“How do you know Miss Misery, Lucy?”

Tears threatened to overwhelm the little girl and Selina tramped down on her own guilt enough to continue questioning her. “Lucy, I need to know. It’s important.”

“We’re sisters,” Lucy said. “Sort of. Janie told me. Miss Misery’s daddy was my daddy too.”

Selina sank to the ground, sick to her stomach. Peter Bradshaw had raped his daughter and gotten her pregnant. Either Jessica had run or he’d tried to dump her somewhere. Lucy had been born and Jessica had begun to plot her revenge. Had she killed Janine to keep her secret? If Janine had announced her attention to go to Batman with the information about the Court of Miracles, or her father…

It still didn’t fit. A horrible possibility then occurred to Selina. She knew the metahuman gene was often inherited.

“Do you see things, Lucy? Do you know what’s going to happen before it does?”

Lucy looked at Selina strangely. “Of course,” the little girl said simply. “Doesn’t everyone?”

Selina closed her eyes. Janine Flannery had gone to Batman not to reveal Jessica’s plans, but for Lucy. And Jessica had murdered her for trying it, and had probably killed George Flannery because he was ‘guilty’ of forcing Janine out of her home and onto the streets.

“Lucy, did Miss Misery promise that you’d be leaving the Court of Miracles with the rest of the children?”

“We’re not leaving,” Lucy told her. “Everyone’s staying right here.”

“No, Lucy, there’re not,” Selina said to the little girl. “Batman is getting everyone out and he’s going to help lots of the kids find families.” Maybe, she added to herself. She knew better than anyone that Gotham City Family Services didn’t have the best track record.

Lucy shook her head stubbornly. “No we’re not. We all die. I dreamed it.”

Selina’s mouth hung open in shock, fear flooding her system with adrenaline. She picked up Lucy and began to race back through the cathedral, one thought pounding through her head. _Get to Bruce_ , she repeated as her muscles began to burn and she stumbled over the rocky, uneven ground, Lucy secure in her arms. _Get to Bruce._

*****************


	8. Things Fall Apart

It had been hours, Batman thought, annoyed. Oracle had been contacted hours ago. Family Services might not be able to process hundreds of children but some child welfare official should have made it down here by now. Barbara would have contacted the GCPD and a hospital and these kids should have been fed, given a medical examination and should be out of here by now. Something was wrong.

“Where’s Miss Misery?” he asked the Mexican girl, finally spotting her across a crowded line as the kids queued for their morning meal.

“Somewhere,” the girl shrugged, turning back to her duty monitoring the line. She kept some of the smaller kids in check as they tried to push impatiently forward to receive a ladleful of the soup an older boy was doling out from a large cauldron. All around them, at perhaps fifty different stations, the same process was occurring. At least they were well-fed, Bruce thought glumly. 

“I need to get to the surface,” he told Maria. She eyed him, her wide brown eyes almost bored. 

“You can’t,” Maria replied. “Tomas and some of the other went for supplies. They’ll be back later.”

__

Why do they need supplies if we’re taking the kids out of here? Bruce wondered. He pushed through the line of small bodies and grasped Maria’s forearm, squeezing tightly. “Where is she?” he snarled. Maria didn’t look impressed. 

“When she wants to talk to you, she’ll talk to you,” the girl informed him, returning her attention to the line and slipping from his hold. Bruce didn’t try to force the issue. He found Dick playing Frisbee with some of the kids who’d already eaten.

“You’re going to play for the big leagues, Mike!” Dick was saying to a short, chubby little boy who’d captured an almost-possible pass from one of the girls. Dick ruffled his hair and it was a strange sight, still clad as he was in his Nightwing costume. 

Batman stalked forward, motioning for Dick to follow him. They stopped in a square formed by intersecting shelters and Batman leaned closer to Dick. 

“Something isn’t right. When was the last time you spoke to Oracle?”

“A couple of hours ago. She was worried, wants me to check in.”

“You’re sure it was her?”

Dick frowned. “What’s going on?”

“I haven’t seen Jessica Bradshaw in seven hours,” Bruce said. “Some of the older boys went to the surface for supplies, which they won’t need if we’re really supposed to be getting everyone out. And I haven’t seen a single GCFS or police officer down here. Oracle should have gotten them down here hours ago.”

“Well, the wheels of social services turn slowly,” Dick said, “but it is kinda weird. And I’m pretty sure it was Babs on the Oracomm channel. She used the right codewords and it sounded like her…”

“Jessica could fake any of that,” Batman said. 

“What do you think she’s up to?”

Batman was about to reply to Dick’s question when Selina appeared in the small courtyard, carrying Lucy on her back. She was breathing heavily, her eyes wild with fright.

“Selina?” Bruce asked. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Jessica,” she panted, handing Lucy over to Dick. “She murdered Janine Flannery. Lucy thinks she’s going to try to kill all of the children.”

Batman lowered his eyes from Selina’s face to Lucy‘s. “Why do you think Miss Misery would hurt you?” he asked the child. Lucy reached out and Bruce leaned forward almost instinctively. She touched his face, her small hand cold on his bare cheek below the mask.

“You’ll be okay,” the little girl promised. 

Selina touched Bruce’s elbow and he turned, his cape brushing back over his shoulders. “Dick, watch Lucy, okay?” Selina asked. Dick nodded, taking the little girl from Selina as she passed her to him. Selina then pulled Batman far enough away to be out of earshot.

“She’s Jessica’s daughter,” she whispered. “Peter Bradshaw was the father.”

Bruce closed his eyes. He’d suspected as much. Something about Lucy’s face wasn’t right, the genetics of inbreeding evident in her small body size and lame left foot. 

“She has the same powers as her mother. And she claims that we’re all going to die down here, Bruce.”

Batman nodded, accepting the information and analyzing the possibilities. He was grateful for his training which allowed him to process such a declaration without feeling. He returned to himself only when he felt Selina’s touch on his arm.

“What do we do?” she asked him. Bruce spoke, a strategy already formulated. 

“You get to the surface. Contact Oracle and find help. Did Lucy say how we were going to die?”

Selina shook her head and he frowned. 

“Jessica could have poisoned the food, or might flood the cavern with gas. Fire is a strong possibility. Tell Barbara to plan for anything.”

“What’s going on?” Dick asked, coming closer, Lucy still secure in his arms. 

“Catwoman has to get to the surface,” Batman said. “We think Jessica’s planning something.”

“Let me go,” Dick said quickly. “I’ll have this place swarming with GCPD in ten seconds.”

“No,” Bruce decided. “Whoever goes will have to climb and Selina is faster than you on a sheer rock face.”

“All those high-rise skyscrapers I hit,” Selina broke in. Dick grinned at her. 

“Can I come?” Lucy asked shyly. The three masked vigilantes turned to her. “I don’t want to die,” she told them quietly.

Dick shook his head, craning his neck to look at the small girl in his arms. “You aren’t going to die,” he told her. “No one is. That’s why we’re here.”

Lucy kept her hand tight around his neck. She looked at both men. “Watch out for the crying angel,” she told them. Nightwing and Batman exchanged uneasy glances. 

“I should get going,” Catwoman said. Selina had put her mask back in place. She took Lucy’s hand. “I’ll be back soon, okay? And you’ll get out of here.”

“Okay,” Lucy said in a small voice, her tiny chin trembling. “But I…I don’t know if you’ll be okay. I didn’t dream it.“

“I’ll see you soon,“ Selina promised, brushing the little girl’s face. Selina squeezed Dick’s shoulder and turned to Bruce. 

“Watch out for yourself, Bats,” she told him, kissing him quickly on the lips. Bruce nodded, not able to speak past the lump of fear in his throat. 

“You sure you can make it okay? It’s a long climb,” Dick pointed out, nervous for her. 

“I’ll be fine. If I don’t make it,” she hesitated, looking at Bruce, willing for once to make herself vulnerable. “If I don’t make it,” she continued, “then he’ll never get to tell me loves me. That sort of thing would piss him off and I’m not to be responsible for _that_ particular freak show.” 

With that she was gone, racing for the mouth of the cavern and the beginning of the mile-long shaft up to the surface. 

“She’s a hell of a woman, Bruce,” Dick said. Batman grunted, and they were off to prevent a disaster.

*********************

Selina lost track of how long she’d been climbing. Seemed like hours, alone in the dark, sweating through her costume, her hands shaking as she searched for her next foothold. She was faster than the former Boy Wonder, but he had more upper-body strength. If she didn’t pick up the pace, she would have to look Bruce in the eyes and explain why, exactly, she hadn’t made the climb in record time. Selina Kyle was not about to do that. 

She wondered what was happening below her, if some sort of Clench-like virus had broken out, if the children were falling victim to poison or flooding. She closed her eyes to the images in her head, freeing one hand to wipe a bead of sweat off her upper lip. Selina may not have been the most maternal woman in the world, but the thought of children in pain was too upsetting to entertain for very long. She still had a ways to go, and the shaft was getting hotter.

*************************

Dick had reached the ledge of the cavern to scout for Jessica and to keep an eye on the crowd of children and teenagers below. If they started dropping or some other kind of disaster took shape, he’d know quickly. It reminded him of that scene in _Jaws II_ , Brody up on that tower, getting scared over a school of tuna fish. Maybe there was no evil plan. Maybe Lucy was mistaken. The little girl was curled up in Selina and Bruce’s quarters in the catacombs, under strict orders to stay that way unless someone came to get her. The kid could have just had a bad dream, Dick mused, hoping desperately that’s all this was. A bad dream.

It started slowly, off in some lost corner in that maze of huts. A fire that no one could have prevented. Dick saw it right away, a heavy feeling settling into his chest. He didn’t see Bruce swoop down to put out the flames; Batman was looking for Jessica in the series of tunnels connecting to the larger cavern. As the fire blossomed, hopping from one shelter to another, the kids scattered. Dick made it down in record time, working crowd control as he organized a bucket brigade among the older kids. Mike, the boy who’d caught that amazing Frisbee pass, was lying prone just beyond the reach of the flames. Dick leapt through the fire, picking the boy up and dashing back across the breach. Smoke inhalation, he determined. Nothing too serious. Dick left him in the care of an older girl and checked the progress of the fire. So far, it was under control. This might just be an accident, not part of Lucy’s prophecy. 

A loud explosion boomed through the cave, followed by a massive fireball. Dick realized almost immediately what had happened. The fire had hit a pocket of methane or some other gas trapped in the cavern’s ceiling. Everyone - all the kids - hit the deck as the flames burned high above them, suspended in the air on the cloud of gas. They watched the ceiling burn, some of the smaller ones crying as the only home they had ever known was engulfed in fire. 

Dick was on his feet quickly, knowing that the fire would rain down sparks, catching the flimsy shelters and igniting everything. He knew Selina, fast as she was, wouldn’t make a mile-long climb up a sheer rock face in time to send down help. They needed another way out. 

“You know these caves well?” Dick turned, asking a boy on his left. 

The kid shrugged. “Not as well as Lucy,” he admitted.

Great, Dick thought. He located the oldest person in the crowd around him, the girl who’d been trying to revive Tommy. “Find some water,” he instructed her. “Douse everybody and all the shelters. I want this place soaking! If something starts to burn and it gets out of control, get to a safer section. I’ll be back,” he promised in his best Governor of California imitation. A couple of the kids smiled weakly, still watching the fire above their heads.

Dick ran back through the cavern and reached the honeycomb of caves along the south wall. He found Lucy sitting on the pallet, her face composed. “Let’s go,” the little girl said, standing. “There’s another way out. You don’t even have to climb, really.”

“Great!” Dick told her, relieved. He hoisted her on his back and went back through the cavern, gathering all the kids together. “Okay everybody,” he said in a loud voice. The air was filled with small whimpering and hazy with smoke. Dick was finding it hard to bring air into his lungs. The fire was consuming all of their oxygen and the air filters weren’t compensating quickly enough. “We’re getting out of here. I want all you older kids to organize the smaller guys in pairs. We go slow and careful; no running, no pushing. Everyone make sure you watch out for the person in front of you and the person behind you. No one gets left behind.”

The kids nodded, some of them fighting back tears. He faced the whole, impossible mass of kids, knowing it would be a miracle if he managed to move three hundred children through a warren of caves without someone getting lost. But Dick didn’t have a choice.

“Ready?” he asked, turning his head to address Lucy who was clinging to his neck.

“Ready,” she told him, and they were off.

*********************************

Batman moved through the caves, his mind focused only on locating Jessica. He knew she might have gone to the surface or used some secret passageway to escape from the cavern, but Bruce’s instincts told him she would be close by, waiting for him. She wanted a showdown. They always did.

He didn’t falter when choosing his direction through the tunnels, selecting always the right-hand turns. His mother had read him _Tom Sawyer_ when he was a child and the vision of Tom and Becky wandering aimlessly through McDougal's cave was very close to him then as he searched for a metahuman in the caverns beneath Gotham. He thought of the death Jessica had predicted for him, a feeble old man wracked by sickness and regret as he wandered in the dark. 

The twisting caverns finally wound to a halt. He could go no further. Cursing, Batman turned, regretting his decision to come after Jessica. Maybe she didn’t want a final battle after all. She wasn’t the Joker or Killer Crock. No seething hatred for Batman drove her forward. She wanted to dispense with the lives she considered wasted by abuse and neglect, then move on to her next target. Batman was not going to let her do so but he wasn’t willing to sacrifice three hundred children to make sure she was brought to justice. 

He had made the decision to go back to the cavern and help Dick keep watch when a sound reached his straining ears in the darkness of the cave. Jessica’s voice. He followed the sound, loosing it sometimes as he rounded a turn in the tunnel or crossed behind an outcropping of rock. It was a haunting noise: he thought she might be singing, drawing him onward through the gloom. 

Finally reaching a great, open cave after the cramped confines of the tunnels radiating out from the central cavern, Batman sucked in a breath of surprise. Our Lady of Sorrows Cathedral, here deep in the earth. He waded through water to reach it, knowing Jessica was waiting for him inside the church.

*****************


	9. Surfacing

Dick set Lucy down, scanning the route she’d laid out for him. It was a path, sort of, which wound up through a cavern and into the gloom above. He couldn’t see any light, but Lucy assured him it would lead out to the surface. “You’re sure about this?” he asked her, looking down at the tiny girl. She nodded, clutching her stuff animal (a bear? he wondered) and looking up with him into the threatening darkness. 

“It takes a while,” she said in a soft voice. “Janie took me up there once. You come out in a park. There’s swings and stuff.”

Grant Park, Dick theorized, wondering how far it was up that narrow path into the outside world. He looked behind him at the sea of the kids. The ones nearest the cave entrance were coughing. Smoke was beginning to billow in from the Court of Miracles as flames devoured the shelters. “Okay everybody, let’s go,” he ordered, picking up Lucy again and settling her on his back. Dick took the hands of two small children at his side, setting a quick pace up the steep pathway. The children followed one or two abreast and Dick began to pray.

********************

The singing continued, soft and faint. Batman looked above him, to the top of the cathedral where the bell tower would be found. She might be on the roof of the church, an act of madness given the decaying state of the cathedral. Bruce had guessed that when the earth had swallowed Our Lady of Sorrows, the church had slid into some underground pool of water that had drained away during the aftershocks following the great ’quake. He was amazed at how complete the building was, but knew that the cathedral was unstable. The whole thing might collapse at any moment.

He weighed his choices and took the stairs, following Jessica’s voice. As he climbed, Bruce focused on steadying his breathing, working to preserve enough of a rhythm so that he wasn’t caught off-guard when he finally caught up to her. He had no idea what a fight with someone who knew the future would entail.

*********************

Selina hauled herself up out of the shaft, lying on her stomach somewhere in a back alley just off Cathedral Square. She breathed deeply of the cool, fresh air of the surface. Her arms had gone numb about an hour ago, her legs a little after that. She’d made it, however. Selina looked up, surprised by the moonlight. They’d been down there a little more than 24hrs. She got to her feet, willing some life back into her body. Bruce, Dick, Lucy…all those kids…they were counting on her. Selina began to run.

*********************

Batman reached the top of Our Lady of Sorrows, opening a small door which led into the bell tower. The great bronze bell had crashed out of its casing and down through the stairwell; he’d passed it on his way up, covered in dust, its voice silenced forever. He placed his foot on the tower flooring gently, surprised when the old stone didn’t give way. 

The singing was louder here, echoing out into the caverns beyond the one housing the great cathedral. He paused, listening for the melody, trying to figure out what it was she was singing. After a moment, he realized that Jessica wasn’t singing at all. She was praying.

He crossed the roof, scanning for her. Finally, he found Jessica. She was standing near the edge of the roof, overlooking the entire huge church. Beside her, two stone angels stood sentry, their expressions remote and sad. The massive wings of the elaborately carved angels jutted out into thin air. The roof of the belltower hadn’t extended far, probably destroyed in the ‘quake. Batman kicked aside a clump of stone rubble with his boot, approaching her carefully.

“Jessica,” he said, keeping his voice low, “we have to get off this roof. It isn’t strong enough to-”

“The roof holds until you jump for me,” she informed him. “The ledge crumbles and you start to fall. You grab St. Bart,” she said, smacking the side of one of the stone angels, “and it gives way. Didn’t Lucy tell you to watch out for the crying statue?”

“I won’t jump for you,” he promised. “Just come away from the edge.”

“Life at all costs, huh?” Jessica asked him. He stepped forward to get a better angle on her. She held a rosary in her hands. 

“Yes,” he replied softly. “I thought you agreed.”

“I think life is valuable,” she assured him. “But when you’ve seen what I’ve seen, the pain those children are going to cause when they grow up as rapists, murderers, thieves…” She sucked in a deep breath. “You should be thanking me. I just prevented a whole new batch of criminals from growing up.”

“You don’t know that,” he said, working his way closer. “You’re afraid of Selina, aren’t you? Because you can’t see what she’s going to do? Your visions aren’t infallible.”

“Do you know why I can’t see her future?” Jessica asked, turning to him. “I think you’d be surprised by the answer.”

“Tell me,” he said, still trying to keep her talking.

Jessica said another prayer before she spoke, slipping the bead through her fingers down the rosary chain. “She’s not supposed to be here.”

Batman shrugged off the revelation. Selina had survived quite a number of near-death experiences; he had begun to believe there was something to that old maxim about a cat having nine lives. “How does that effect your power?” he tried, hoping to distract Jessica long enough to get a line on her. He was not going to try to jump.

“You don’t understand,” Jessica sighed. “She was never supposed to be conceived at all. There are aberrations, Bruce. Fractures in time. I don’t completely understand what causes them but I’m sure your friend Wally West would have a few theories. Selina is an anomaly. The man who fathered her, Carmine Falcone, was supposed to die on your father’s operating table.”

Batman stared at her in shock. “Falcone was supposed to die?”

Jessica nodded. “His survival changed many things. For Gotham. For you. Your parents-”

“He had nothing to do with my parents’ murder,” Batman said quickly. Jessica snorted.

“Of course not. But he did flood the city with crime as his mob syndicate gained power. Perhaps the man who shot your parents wouldn’t have come to Gotham if Falcone had died before taking control of the Twelve Families.” 

Batman was silent, his heart and mind pounding with a single question that had haunted him for thirty years.

“Yes. I know,” Jessica said quietly. “I know who shot your parents. And he’s still alive, still out there, waiting for you.”

Bruce didn’t breathe. He was closer to the truth than he had ever been before. His life rushed past him at breakneck speed, all of it overshadowed by the sound of two fatal gunshots fired thirty years ago. Every decision he had made, everything he had ever felt or thought or believed, all of it overshadowed by his failure to find his parents’ killer… 

“Do you want to know his name?” Jessica asked softly, rising. The rosary slipped from her hands, caught on her wrist only by a thin strand of beads. 

He stared at her, this pale, frightened woman with the crazy eyes, clutching her faith to her even as she betrayed its tenants, planning the murders of hundreds of children. He knew what her price was, knew what it would cost to learn the name of the man who had destroyed his life. He would have to acknowledge that she was right. 

Batman blinked, the convictions he had set his life by taking hold, giving him strength and assurance again. “Life is precious, Jessica,” he said. “You know I will never agree to anything else.”

Jessica smiled, holding her hands out to him in a gesture of capitulation. “I know,” she said softly. “But I wanted you to know what you’re giving up.”

He grasped her hands to pull her closer and felt immediately his mistake. At the touch of her skin, images slammed into his mind, filling him with a pain so deep and consuming it burned like a fire. 

He closed his eyes against the pictures, seeing before him his parents alive, watching him grow. Proud as he graduated high school. His father, displeased when Bruce chose law over medicine. His mother, eyes shining with joy as her son introduced her to the woman would become his wife. Thomas and Martha Wayne, attending his wedding. Cooing over grandchildren, his own chubby, contented babies. His life, filled with love as he had never known. Images he denied himself for thirty years since that night in the alley. What might have been.

“Le temps détruit tout,” she whispered to him. 

Batman fell to his knees, unable to bear the mental images she was projecting. The whole of his painful, lonely life was laid open and bleeding in those few seconds as the telepath showed him exactly what he had lost. 

“Now, don’t you want that man dead?” Jessica asked. “The man who stole that from you?”

“No!” Bruce roared, clutching at the sides of his head, wanting to tear the images from his brain. 

“You’re lying,” she whispered in his ear. Bruce realized that, for a single moment, he had been. “That’s what the people I’ve killed have stolen from all those children down there,” her voice hissed. “Men like my father. Men like the one who killed your father.”

“No,” he managed weakly, the pictures in his head blurring and then fading into silence. He fell to his knees, his great weight cracking against the thin stone flooring. A strangled sob bubbled up out of his throat before he could stop it. Jessica crouched next to him, slipping the rosary over his head. 

“I know you don’t believe in God,” she said softly, “but take it from someone who’s seen it all. Have faith, Bruce,” she whispered. “And value your innocence in what’s to come.” And then she was gone.

Batman opened his eyes, hearing only the echoing silence of the cave and his own ragged breathing. He stood, the rosary an unfamiliar presence around his neck, bumping against the Bat symbol emblazoned on his chest. He stood between the two statues of the crying angels, St. Bartholomew and St. Thomas. He looked down, closing his eyes against the sight of Jessica Bradshaw’s body lying broken and limp on the ground a hundred feet below. 

Batman straightened, fingering the rosary necklace. Something carried towards him on the still air: the acrid smell of smoke. The children.

He raced down the endless stairwell of Our Lady of Sorrow, leaving the crumbling stone church and Jessica’s body to posterity. By the time he reached the Court of Miracles, flames had devoured all the small structures. Batman swayed with relief as he realized that no small bodies lay charred among the rubble. The children were safe, at least for now.

*********************

__

This was a bonehead move, Grayson, Dick thought to himself, trudging along up the path with three hundred children in tow. They were a quiet bunch, allowing only a few small cries of fear or pain to filter through the complete blackness of the cave. 

“How much longer?” he whispered to Lucy. He felt the little girl shrug her shoulders.

“What’s gonna happen when we get out of the cave?” David, the little boy to Dick’s right, asked. Dick squeezed the kid’s hand in what he hoped was a comforting gesture.

“We’re going to get some help,” Dick told him. “People are going to look after you. You’re going to get clean clothes and a hot meal and maybe some toys to play with.”

“Video games?” David asked. 

Dick nodded wisely. “Video games,” he agreed. The Wayne Foundation could chip in for a couple hundred Game Boys, he figured. 

“What’s your favorite toy?” Susie, the nine-year old on Dick’s left, asked. 

“He doesn’t play with toys, stupid,” the boy corrected. “He’s a superhero. He can fly and stuff. He doesn’t need toys,” he announced with an air of great superiority. 

Susie looked up at Dick. “You don’t play with toys?”

“Sure I do!” Dick exclaimed. “Being a superhero means you just get to play with really big toys. Have you guys ever seen the Batmobile? That thing’s just a big Matchbox car.”

Susie nodded. David seemed less than convinced. Lucy squeezed Dick’s neck gently. “We’re going to have to stop.”

“Why-” Dick began to ask, just as he felt the earth directly before him begin to drop away. He came to a dead stop and extended his arms to stop Susie and David from going over the edge of the chasm opening in front of them. The pathway had crumbled directly ahead. There was no way out, except back though the fire to the shaft entrance. 

Dick crouched to let Lucy slid off his back, feeling the other kids stop behind him in the darkness. He was glad the pathway was so narrow. If they had been walking more than two or three abreast, it would have take much longer to stop and they might have pushed the first kids in line off the path into the fissure. 

“Everybody okay?” Dick called down the line, wishing his night vision lenses were more effective in the complete blackness of the cave. He could see only about thirty feet in any direction. All around him, the voices of the children filled the dark cavern with affirmation. They were okay, at least for now. Dick knew the little ones were already getting tired with the long climb and some of the teenagers were grumbling that there was no end to the path. They were all tough kids: most of them had grown up on the streets and all had escaped hellish domestic circumstances, but the march out of the earth was threatening to overwhelm them. Dick knew how they felt. 

Dick surveyed the pathway in front of them, estimating the gaping hole in the ground to be ten feet across. Too far to jump, he decided. Lucy tugged on his arm.

“We can make it,” she told him. “There’s a walkway.”

“Where?” Dick asked, scanning the darkness again with his night vision. Nothing.

Lucy grabbed his hand and forced him to her level, onto his knees. She kept hold of his hand, crawling forward to the edge of the chasm nearer the wall of rock on one side. “Here,” she said, bringing his hand into contact with a thin ledge of stone set into the rock. Obviously this pathway had been used to get out of the caverns before. The ledge was man-made.

Dick checked the dimensions. It was narrow, much narrower than the path they’d been following. And in the complete blackness of the cave, it would be too easy to misstep and slip off into the ledge. This wouldn’t do.

“It’s too narrow,” Dick told Lucy. 

She shook her head. “It’s okay. The littler kids will be scared and Jesus Ramirez will slip, but you’ll catch him. We’ll make it.”

“It’s too dark,” he tried again, still getting used to the idea that he had no choice. Lucy cocked her head to the side, then glanced down the long line of children.

“Call for Molly O’Neal,” she suggested. “Molly smokes, so she’ll have a lighter. And Patty K. has some tea candles.”

It took only a few minutes to get everything together. The tiny candles were placed a few feet apart on the narrow ledge, flickering in the darkness. Their light seemed to encompass the whole world. Dick crossed first, striding easily across the footbridge. He kept his back up against the wall, still wishing he could see better. His nightvision was having trouble compensating with the candlelight and for a long time, all he could see were the candles.

He started helping the kids across: Lucy, Susie and David first and then a long chain of children. It went exactly as Lucy had predicted: the smaller children were frightened but screwed up enough courage to cross and one boy (Jesus?) slipped. Dick caught him before he could go over the edge of the ledge into the yawning darkness below.

Dick had lost track of time, but he estimated the whole evacuation had already taken more than three hours. Where was Bruce? He doubted that Batman had been overpowered by Jessica Bradshaw, unless her telepathic gifts posed some kind of additional threat. Dick forced the mental image of Bruce’s body lying broken and bleeding in some forgotten cavern out of his mind and helped the last kids across. He had a feeling they still had a long way to go.

******************************

Selina pulled the bike to a stop outside of a ranch-style, split-level house in Tricorner, killing the engine. She’d hotwired the thing back near Cathedral Square and the little Honda had more than kept up with her. She decided to hang on to it. 

Selina raced up the few steps to the door and banged loudly, wondering what time it was. The moon was high and full in the sky; she guessed it was sometime after 1am. She kept banging until the door finally opened. Jim Gordon stood before her, wearing a hastily-tied robe and plaid slippers, bleary-eyed, his silver hair hopelessly rumpled. “Catwoman? What-”

“We’re in trouble,” Selina told him, not wasting time. “We found three hundred children a mile below ground underneath Cathedral Square. And they’re going to die if we don’t get help to them.”

“What-” Gordon tried again, desperately attempting to clear the cobwebs of sleep from his mind. “Is Batman-”

“He’s still underground, trying to protect the kids. Nightwing’s there too.”

Barbara, Jim thought. Babs would be worried sick. “What do you need?” he asked her. Selina let out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to fight her, at least not on this. Her respect for the man grew marginally.

“Police, EMTs, the national guard, whatever you can swing,” she told him. “I have to contact Oracle.”

Jim started a little at the overt use of his daughter’s code name. “Babs’ number is second down on speed dial.”

“Thanks,” Selina said, pushing past him into the house. She picked up the phone in the kitchen, hit ‘2’, and in an instant, Barbara Gordon answered, sounding wide awake.

“We found the Other,” Selina said quickly. “Jessica Bradshaw. Miss Misery. And she’s been keeping a bunch of kids buried down in the earth with her. Get anything with a siren to head into Cathedral Square on Adams St. There’s a little alleyway with a basement service entrance. Punch through that and you’ll find a mile-long shaft that’ll take you into a big cavern.”

“Are Blackbird and Blue Canary-”

“They’re okay,” she said quickly, hoping Barbara wasn’t given to hysterics. Selina doubted Bruce would want her on the team if she was, but you never knew with Bruce. “At least they were a few hours ago,” Selina amended honestly. “Can find me another way down into those caverns beneath Cathedral Square?”

She heard the click of keys and Barbara’s voice replied promptly, “there’s a Gotham U archeological dig in progress in Grant Park. They’ve partially excavated an old tunnel running southeast down towards Adams Street.”

“Good. Get some EMTs over there too,” Selina suggested. “If I know Bruce, he’ll find a back door somewhere and use it.”

“Where are you?” Barbara asked, her tone clipped and efficient as she tried to ignore the way Selina refused to use code over the secure channel.

“Your dad’s house,” Selina said. “He’s going to start calling the GCPD as soon as I’m done with you.”

“I’ll work on the medical response,” Barbara decided. “Thanks, Hedgehog.”

“ _That’s_ my codename?”

A city mile away, Barbara Gordon grinned into her headpiece. “Yeah. Like it?”

**********************

“Something’s wrong,” Lucy said quietly. Dick kept marching, but listened to her intently.

“What?” he asked.

“The fire,” she told him. “It went the wrong way.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dreamed that it would go north through the tunnels to the big church,” she said in a hushed whisper. “But someone blew air into the Court of Miracles. Now it’s coming behind us.”

“There’s nothing to burn in this cave, Lucy.”

The little girl thought about that. “Wires,” she said quietly. “We have lights. Miss Misery and Janie ran wires down here. The fire’s coming along them. We need to hurry, Dick,” Lucy said urgently, clasping his neck tightly. 

“Okay everybody,” Dick said, knowing he was taking an enormous risk, “We need to pick up the pace a little. Who wants to show me they’re a good runner?”

He broke into a swift jog, dialing it down after a while for the little kids. Soon they were moving more quickly, a vast, overwhelming tremble of feet pounding through the caves beneath Gotham.

**********************

Selina waited, concealed among the trees in Grant Park, watching as some uniforms punched through the seals around the Gotham U dig site and entered into the excavated tunnels. She waited, pressing the GCPD communicator Gordon had given her more firmly into her ear. Still nothing. 

With a shriek of electronic noise that made her wince, Selina heard the voices of the police working on the shaft on Adams Street. When they’d entered the tunnel, the additional air had fed the fire, creating a back draft. Two men had lost their lives. 

“Doesn’t look good,” Oracle’s voice said in her ear, locking the frequency onto a secure channel. “They said the whole cave system is filled with fire. There’s some kind of electrical wiring suspended throughout the caverns. The fire’s feeding off that.”

“What about the Grant Park entrance?” Selina asked, keeping an eye on the EMTs setting up triage centers near the tennis courts across from her.

“We’re waiting. There’s no sign of the kids, or Batman and Nightwing.”

“I shouldn’t have left them,” she said quietly. “I know it’s always the girl who goes for help, but-”

“You did the right thing,” Barbara reassured her, double-checking her own motivations. She was actually reassuring Catwoman. Babs shrugged, pulling her chair closer to the Oracom station before her. 

“Hang on, Hedgehog. I’m getting something.”

Selina waited, tuning her frequency back and forth between the EMT/police broadband and Oracle. Electronic silence cackled in her ear. She felt the tree around her stir and suddenly Robin was perched next to her on the branch.

“Oracle sent me over,” the kid told her. “Said Blackbird was in trouble.”

“I thought we only had to use those ridiculous codenames over the radio.”

Tim shrugged. “Can’t be too careful.”

“You sound like him,” Selina said softly. “Where’s Batgirl?”

“There was a triple homicide in Ottisburg,” Robin informed her. “Someone from the team needed to check it out. The victims had Smile-Ex grins plastered over their faces.”

“The Joker.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Robin agreed. “I’m thinking it’s a copycat thing. The Joker’s still at the Slab in Antarctica.”

“As far as you know,” Selina said glumly. She’d heard Bruce say often enough that the Joker could escape from anything. 

“They’ve got something,” Robin said, leaning forward on the branch and training his binoculars onto the Grant Park entrance. Smoke was billowing out of the mouth of the tunnel. “Oh, no,” Tim said in a hushed voice.

***********************

Dick’s eyes burned and his lungs ached. The air was chocked with smoke and, far behind him, he heard children coughing and crying.

“Okay everybody, we’re going to start crawling!” he decided, his voice artificially cheerful. He tried to make crawling through smoky darkness over rough rock sound fun. “Get down as low as you can and crawl fast. It’ll get easier to breathe the closer we get to the surface.” _If we’re even heading for the surface,_ Dick thought. 

“It’s dark, Dick,” Lucy whispered to him. “I haven’t seen anything since the fire. Maybe I was wrong.”

“Don’t say that, kiddo,” he begged her. “Just hang on tight. It can’t be much further.”

The smoke continued to pour into the dark tunnel.

*****************

Bruce stumbled through the caverns, the world around him on fire. He smelled methane in the air and knew it was feeding the fire and canceling any breathable oxygen in the caverns. He’d found the path Dick had taken with the children: their footprints were all over the cave floor. He was making good time as he raced behind them, but the fire had now slowed his progress considerably. 

He came to a wide gap in the pathway. It was ten feet across easily and with the magnification in his cowl he could see the children’s footprints resume on the other side. There was no way to cross, no small ledge or easy foothold. _How had Dick done it?_ he marveled, proud of his adopted son. Rocks rained down upon him, and Bruce paused, listening. Drilling. Someone was drilling in the tunnel ahead.

There was a loud crash and before he could cover his head, the world went dark.

*****************

“What’s going on?” Robin asked an EMT standing and watching the progress at the Grant Park entrance. The man reacted swiftly, snapping to attention even as he eyed Batman’s junior partner with a mixture of awe and suspicion. 

“They hit a block in the tunnel. It’s not too bad: they just have to drill a couple of feet through to the other side. There’s a fire down there, burning off methane. The smoke is getting pretty bad. We’re anticipating causalities if the kids made it this far.”

“Won’t the drilling destabilize the tunnel?” Robin asked him. The EMT shrugged but looked guiltily towards the excavation in progress. That obviously hadn’t been much a consideration.

“What?” Catwoman asked, appearing out of the smoke and confusion to stand at Robin’s side. The EMT stared at her, transfixed, then scurried away. Two masks were too much for the man.

“They’re drilling past a blockage in the tunnel,” Dick said. “It won’t take long but I’m worried that the tunnel’s structural integrity can’t handle it.”

Selina sighed. “You know how they say it gets worse before it gets better?” Tim nodded. “I really hate when they say that.”

********************

Dick flipped Lucy beneath the protection of his body, shielding her and the two other kids near him as rocks rained down. They were lucky they’d been crawling. It was an easier for the kids to curl into a ball and cover their heads as large rocks detached from the cavern ceiling and crashed down onto the pathway. The rumbling continued and Dick wondered desperately if it was another earthquake.

“What’s going on?” he asked Lucy. The little girl squeezed her eyes shut. 

“Digging. Men are digging, trying to help. I didn’t see them before.”

__

Thank God, Dick thought, just as the rumbling ceased. He uncovered the children’s heads and resumed his crawling position. The smoke had decreased a little and Dick was finding it easier to breath. 

“C’mon, guys. Keep going,” he encouraged, listening to the groans and complaints as the kids got to their feet and started marching forward again. Dick stared ahead in the darkness and thought he saw a pinprick of light. It wasn’t much, but he kept an eye on it. After a few minutes, the pinprick had grown. Strange voices began to echo off the walls of the cavern. Moments later, Dick’s nightvision picked out the figure of a heavily-armored GCPD officer approaching in the dark.

“Hi!” Dick called out, relief and exhaustion evident in his voice. “What kept you?”

The officer came to a dead stop, shinning a bright flashlight over the strange sight before him. A lithe, heavily-muscled man in a blue-and-black formfitting suit and a black mask was holding the hands of two small children. Another little girl was dangling from around his neck, some sort of unidentifiable animal in her grip. Behind them, scores of grubby little children, their faces streaked with dirt and tears, coughed and cried in the dissipating smoke of the tunnel.

The man said the only logical thing a Gothamite could say, under the circumstances: “You guys need help?”

****************

Catwoman and Robin watched the long exodus from the tunnel anxiously. Dick emerged first and beside her Selina felt Tim breathe a sigh of relief. She grinned beneath her mask as Nightwing lowered Lucy to the ground. Paramedics immediately swept up the little girl and took her to a waiting triage station. The same thing was repeated hundreds of times as the children were removed from the tunnel. Some of the teenagers were confrontational and, as soon as they were treated for smoke inhalation they melted into the darkness of the Gotham night. The younger children sobbed and clung to each other, terrified of the EMTs trying to assess their condition. Selina reminded herself how badly these kids had been hurt, and how difficult it was going to be for them to trust anyone again. She was still learning herself.

Lucy crossed the long, grassy field to the corpse of trees where Robin and Catwoman watched the proceedings, concealed within the branches of a great oak. The little girl looked up into the canopy of leaves for a while, then asked softly, “Can I come up?”

Selina and Tim dropped out of the tree and Lucy held up her arms. Selina picked the little girl up and cradled her gently. Lucy touched her face.

“You okay?” the small girl asked.

Selina nodded, surprised by the prick of tears in her eyes. She was a regular Niagara Falls lately. 

Nightwing found them quickly, shaking hands with Tim in relief. “It went okay,” he said, unbelieving. “They all made it out.”

“Told you,” Lucy said from her contented position in Selina’s arms.

“Shouldn’t she be with the EMTs?” Dick asked Selina over Lucy’s head. Selina looked at the little girl, then back at Dick.

“She’ll have to go with them eventually,” Robin broke in. “Selina knows that. Let the kid stick around until this is over. Want something to eat?” he asked Lucy. She grinned.

“Sure!” she exclaimed. “Thanks, Tim!”

Tim blinked but didn’t point out the fact that a) he was dressed in the Robin costume and b) no one had told Lucy his name. He was sure there was an explanation but right now he was too relieved and happy to hear it.

“Where’s Bruce?” Selina asked suddenly. Robin and Nightwing looked at each other, then back at the still-proceeding evacuation. They half expected a black-clad creature of the night to emerge from the gaping tunnel, his cape swirling in the wind. Instead, only another twenty frightened, exhausted kids appeared. 

“He went after Jessica,” Dick said. “I thought he might try for the other end of the tunnel. I couldn’t make it through with the kids, but he’s got his breathing apparatus and-”

“Oracle, this is Whippoorwill,” Robin said, pressing his earpiece. “Any news from the Adams St. shaft?”

“Negative,” Oracle said quickly. “They haven’t found anything. The fire’s burning too hot down there.”

Selina’s heart twisted inside her. “Could he be-”

“No,” Nightwing said quickly. “You know how he is. Just before they’re ready to declare an ‘all clear’ and seal up the tunnel he’ll appear from thin air and glare at us for worrying about him.”

“All Clear!” one of the GCPD officers declared over a bullhorn. The three masked vigilantes and the tiny girl in Catwoman’s arms looked expectantly at the tunnel entrance. 

Nothing.

“I think he’s hurt,” Lucy said. “He’s still down there.”

Catwoman looked at Dick anxiously. He looked back at the tunnel, narrowing his eyes. “Dammit Bruce,” he muttered under his breath. 

“Where?” Selina asked Lucy. The little girl closed her eyes, stroking the slick leather of Selina’s costume unconsciously. 

“Right before the big gap in the path,” she said. “Batman didn’t know about my trick. He was going to jump the gap before the roof caved in on him.”

“What trick, Lucy?” Dick asked suddenly. “The ledge we walked across?”

“I made it with my mind,” the little girl said simply. “You were so worried.”

Tim backed away a little from Lucy. So did Dick. Selina frowned at them, looking into Lucy’s face. “Lucy, is Batman still alive?”

The girl nodded. Selina set her down. “I’m going in,” she told them. Dick caught her elbow. 

“It’s going to be hot down there. Dangerous,” he said. Selina opened her mouth to cut him off before Dick could tell her to wait or let him go instead. Dick simply handed her one of Tim’s spare breathers. “Good luck,” he said.

“I’ll go with her,” Tim declared. 

Dick nodded, relieved. He knew he was too exhausted and had inhaled too much smoke to make a second trip into the tunnel without endangering everyone. “It’s about 15km down. Go slow and use flashlights.”

They were gone.

*********************

Selina and Tim sped through the darkness, keeping up a brisk pace despite Dick’s warning. They couldn’t see very far ahead due to the smoke still choking the cave but the flashlights amplified their starlight lenses considerably. It took nearly twenty minutes at full run to reach the gap Lucy had described. A line of fire burned into the cave wall along a previously-invisible power line, soft and orange in the smoky atmosphere. 

“Bruce?” Selina asked hesitantly, hearing only the clatter of rocks as they tumbled into the deep gorge below. Tim touched her elbow, gesturing at a pile of shale near the edge of the gap. Some black material was caught it the rocks; it looked like the edge of a cape.

Selina leapt easily across the ten-foot gap. Tim made the same jump a second later although he wasn’t able to match Selina’s graceful landing. They set to work digging through the rocks, shifting the rubble to the side and sending the shale tumbling off into the gorge. Slowly, they uncovered a bloody limb and a badly bruised face. Bruce.

“He’s still breathing,” Tim announced with relief. “Let’s get him out of here.”

Batman stirred, opening his eyes. His head had been cut under the cowl and a thin trail of blood trickled down the side of his face. “Wha-” he mumbled, disoriented.

Selina paused in her careful redistribution of the rocks to touch his face tenderly. “You’re okay. Everyone’s fine. Dick made it out with the kids and now we’re going to hall your heavy ass up to the surface. Hang on.”

Bruce seemed satisfied with that and relaxed, letting Robin and Catwoman work. Finally, his bruised, mangled body was completely free of the rocks. Tim fixed a breather to his face and Bruce dragged air into his lungs, feeling pain shoot through his torso. He’d broken at least six ribs. After another, more shallow breath, he spoke quietly. “I don’t think I can stand.”

Selina drew Tim’s attention to Bruce’s left arm. The bone in his forearm had pierced the skin and gone through his thick Kevlar tunic, jutting out in flash of white against a gushing red wound. “I’m afraid it’s traction for you this time, m’dear,” Selina said lightly, closing her eyes against the gruesome injury. 

“Let’s get him out of here,” Tim said.

*****************


	10. Let It Be

It had been a long, tense night. They patched Bruce up with some supplies liberated from an unattended ambulance and he slowly became alert and functional now that his lungs were clear of smoke. Bruce had sustained a badly broken arm, cracked ribs and a mild concussion but he stood under his own power, his arm in a field splint. His eyes beneath the mask were bloodshot and tired, his mouth drawn in a firm, tense line as he decided what to do. Silently, they made their way west into Old Gotham and the headquarters of Gotham Family Services.

Lucy held Selina’s hand as they all stood vigil on the rooftop, watching as more of the city’s orphans and lost children were led into the center. Some of them would find foster homes for the night. Others would sleep in a converted church basement or a high school gym. There were so many children that GCFS was completely overwhelmed and it was a long time before all of the children were processed and looked after. Selina knew that, within a year, most of them would be back out on the streets. Jessica Bradshaw may have killed the people who had hurt them but she had done nothing for the children themselves. Selina knew as well as anyone that vengeance did not heal an old, deep wound. It was barely more than a salve.

“What will happen to them?” Tim asked, his voice sounding high and young in the wind. Bruce tightened his jaw, frowning beneath Batman’s cowl. Dick spoke slowly, gently.

“Maybe some of them will find families,” he said hopefully. “The Wayne Foundation can help with that.”

“The Wayne Foundation didn’t do much for them before this,” Selina pointed out. “Those kids were on the streets of this city for months. Holly knew most of them. There are twelve of the missing girls,” she pointed at a the group of pre-pubescent girls clustered around the doors of GCFS, smoking cigarettes and plotting their escape from state care. “Miss Misery just collected them for us. And there are probably more out there, somewhere.”

Dick sighed tiredly. “Well, they’re all still alive, and they’re in the system now. They’ll be okay.”

Selina opened her mouth to speak but Lucy squeezed her hand. “Maybe,” the little girl told Dick. 

“What do we do with her?” Tim asked Bruce. Lucy titled her calm, wide-eyed face up to Batman. 

“I’m not going to an orphanage, am I?” she asked him. Bruce shook his head and Selina’s grip on Lucy’s hand tightened. Tim and Dick looked at him in surprise.

“Batman?” Dick asked. Bruce sighed.

“She’s a metahuman, Dick. GCFS wouldn’t know what to do with her.”

Dick nodded, glad they hadn’t yet told Bruce about Lucy’s telekinetic abilities. Her telepathy was bad enough. Bruce did not like metahumans. If he knew she had the power to form a solid rock ledge with her mind, Bruce would regard Lucy as a threat and Dick didn’t want that to happen, somehow. 

“We should head over to Leslie’s clinic,” Selina suggested. “You need proper medical attention,” she said to Bruce in a tone that booked no refusal. “And she can examine Lucy.”

Bruce nodded, watching as the last of the children were led into the GCFS building. He’d forced himself to watch this so he could understand how badly he was failing in his mission. More of them were being created every day while he wasted his time fighting costumed theme criminals. This new breed of hurt, frightened children were growing up to be criminals who would hurt and frighten in their turn. Jessica had shown him things he never wanted to think of again, but he used it, as he always did, to illustrate his own weaknesses. He wasn’t doing enough.

Selina picked up Lucy, settling the child into her arms for the trip north to the East End and Leslie’s clinic. Bruce stopped her. “Let’s go back to the manor,” he said tiredly. “We’ll see Leslie in the morning.”

“You’re sure?” Selina asked him, and Bruce turned away, heading for the fire escape. Tim and Dick shrugged, following their leader off the rooftop. Selina sighed, trailing after them, Lucy’s head on her shoulder. They all just needed to sleep. Everything would seem better in the morning. 

*****************


End file.
